Mariana van Zeller
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Joe Rogan podcast check it out
The Joe Rogan experience
Train by day Joe Rogan podcast by night
All day
When did we do the podcast before?
What year was it?
10 years ago
Wow that's crazy
You were one of the first guests
That I remember going
I gotta talk to that lady
I go we gotta find them
Because the piece the Oxycontin Express
That you did
I'm like that was a mind blower
That was when I first found out
About what was going on
The pill mills down in Florida
I was like that is fucking insane
And that was like
In the beginning of the podcast
The early days
It was yeah
You reached out to me on Twitter
And I was super excited
Is that what it was?
It's like do you want to come on the show
I was like fuck yeah
Well I love your new show
First of all tell people what it is
What it's called
For sure
It's called Trafficked
It's on Wednesdays 9pm
On National Geographic
And in every episode
We go on a journey
A wild journey
Into black markets
Around the world
You do real boots on the ground
Investigative journalism
You are a fucking gangster woman
The shit that you did in Peru
And in Colombia
I was watching that episode on cocaine
My hands were sweating
Watching you do this
It's like you were
You went to the places
Where they're growing it
To the places where they make it
That's right
You marched with the people
That carry it
Through the route
When they're carrying it
In their backpacks
I was like oh my god
You're risking your life
Genuinely risking your life
I don't like to see it that way
No story is worth a life
So I hate
We minimize the risk
But these are important stories to tell
These black markets
Are happening all around us
They're super widespread
I think we have this idea
That they're happening
In sort of far away lands
In deep and secret locations
But they're not
And they have a real impact
On our lives
So there is a reason
Why we do the kind of reporting
And you're right
Boots on the ground
Old school journalism
I think is more important
Now than ever
And we are seeing less of it
Nowadays
It's so hard to do
I mean
To find someone
Willing to do
What you did
For that cocaine episode
I watched it last night
I was
I was sweating
I was like nervous
I was riveted
It's
It's such a
It's such a
Dangerous
§02Transcript · 02:35–04:32
But yet
It's so
Much more
Illuminating
Than any other
Kind of journalism
You could say
Oh this is happening
In Colombia
Oh this is happening
In Peru
And I'll just sit at home
Going oh I guess
That's happening in Colombia
Right
But to see you
Who I know
There
Going there
And to see
All the stuff
That you had to go through
To meet with these people
And to gain their trust
Yeah
I would say also
I would add to that
That you know
We did Mexico
We did Mexico
With fentanyl
We did guns here in the west
Going to Mexico
We did tigers in Asia
And all these
Different scams
In Jamaica and Israel
And I think a big important reason
Or goal for us
With this show
And for me in particular
Because it's the way
That I approach my job
And my career
As a journalist
Is to
Not only be there
To inform
Of what's happening
Like you were saying
But also I think
It's important for people
To connect to people
In these far away lands
That at first glance
We have nothing in common
Right
These are the bad guys
Operating in far distant lands
Or maybe sometimes around us
But they're considered
The bad people
The people that we have
Nothing in common with
But if you actually
Sit down with them
And listen to their stories
And this is the big shocker
Of this show
And I think it rubs people
The wrong way
Sometimes when you admit
Or when somebody tells you
That look
Actually there is not a lot
That differentiates you
From the guy smuggling cocaine
Out of the Peru
The Vrame Valley in Peru
You both have the same
Are motivated by the same goals
Which is you know
Happiness
An opportunity in life
A chance for
You know
To reach your dreams
And unless you actually
Look at it this way
And start realizing
That that is more often
Than not the case
Of course there's a lot
Of bad people there
Doing it for greed
And solely greed
That also happens
And I spent a lot of time
With those people as well
But unless you start
§03Transcript · 04:32–06:10
Understanding sort of
The root causes
Of what leads people
Into these lives
You're never going to
Be able to address
Black markets
Well you really did
A fantastic job
Of getting close
To these people
And talking to them
Like you know
They were talking
About their family
They were talking
About their children
The one guy
Who is the chemist
Who wants to get out
Because he wants
To go to school
And they're like
This is my last year
It's horrible
That story alone
We spent the night
With these mochileros
These backpackers
Teenagers
Who carry the loads
Of cocaine
On their back
Out of the valley
And spending time
With them
And you know
Really dangerous work
They tell us stories
About how they hike
For days on end
Out of the Amazon
The Frame Valley
To a place
Where then it's sent
Out into
Outside of the country
To Europe
And to the United States
And you spend time
With these guys
And you listen to them
And it's incredibly
Dangerous work too
They've seen their best
Friends being killed
In front of them
And I ask them
So why would you ever
Want to do something
Like this
You know
And he's like
Look very simple
I grew up
In a very poor family
I always wanted
To go to college
I knew that
The only job opportunities
The whole economy
Is essentially sustained
By the growing
Of coca leaves
Production of cocaine
And smuggling of cocaine
So the only job opportunity
Here I had
Was this
And I asked him
Why do you want
To go to college
Oh badly
Perhaps a stupid question
But he said
You know
Because I want to be a dentist
And I said
Why a dentist
Because I want to
Make people smile
And this just
Is like
These are the moments
That I think
Will really stay with me
And it was so genuine
Like the experience
Was so raw
Like all of it
§04Transcript · 06:10–07:46
From showing the families
Growing the coca leaves
And I learned something
From it
I always assumed
That it was
The organized crime
Cartels
That were growing
The coca leaves
But no
It's these families
These very poor families
That are growing
These coca leaves
And drying them
Out by the road
Where everyone can see
So you have
Children playing
You have these
Very poor people
That are growing
This crop
And the vast majority
Of it
Is sold
To the cartels
And they
They're not
Selling it
For a lot of money
Either
No
Not at all
It's never the people
At the bottom
That are making money
It's always the people
At the top
But it's crazy
That these are the people
That are growing it
Yeah
Like
This whole valley
Has been growing
Coca for thousands
Of years
It's what they do
And it's also crazy
That the thing itself
The coca leaf
Like there's actually
Been people
That have made
A really good argument
That not only
Should that stuff
Be legal
But it's probably
Good for you
Yeah the coca leaf
A lot
Alone
If it is not
Made into cocaine
It's
If you
They chew it
You know
You go to the Andes
And all around
They actually chew
The coca leaf
I had an opportunity
To do that
There was a moment
Where one of them
I mean you do it
It helps you
With high altitude sickness
And it helps you
Gain more energy
And when we were
Filming with a group
They actually
Wanted me to try some
I had tried some before
But I did it
As well then
And it tastes
It's actually
It doesn't taste
It kind of tastes
Like a leaf
Quite frankly
But you do feel
A little bit more energy
And there's nothing
§05Transcript · 07:46–09:23
There's nothing illegal
About that by the way
That's completely
Something that's been
Doing
They've been
It's been the tradition
In this area
For you know
Thousands of years
And when you did it
Like what
Gave you energy
Like what did it feel like
It's not like
A bump of cocaine
Have you done
A bump of cocaine
I actually have not
You know it's so funny
Because I spent
My entire life
Reporting on drugs
And the drug trade
And I am
And I am
You know
People you know
Like do crazy
Shit for a living
And yet I am
Terrified of drugs
I think partly
Because I've seen
How they're done
Well after the
Oxycontin Express
And seeing how many
People's lives
Are destroyed
By a legal drug
I could imagine
Why you would want
To avoid
The ones that are
Illegal
I've never done
Coke either
That's why I'm asking
Oh you haven't
No never
I think we're
Some of the only
Two people
I took tea once
Mate de coca tea
Have you ever had that
Made with coca leaves
Yeah
And I couldn't
Shut the fuck up
Which is a problem already
That's a problem
With me too
That's exactly my problem
Is that I am high energy
All the time
If I were to do cocaine
Then I don't think
Anyone could
Take me
Exactly
My friend Jimmy
In high school
When we were young
One of his buddies
Was selling coke
And he just looked at me
And he goes
You should never do this stuff
I go why
He goes
Because I think
You'd love it
And I'm like okay
That's partly my problem too
I'm afraid
That I'm going to like
I think everybody loves it
I think it makes you feel amazing
I mean there's got to be
A reason why it's so popular
You know I've smoked weed
And I hated it actually
It made me totally paranoid
Again probably
One of the only ones
I smoked it for the first time
When I was 18
And all my friends
§06Transcript · 09:23–11:04
Had smoked weed before
It was actually
It was
What do you call it
In Portugal
It's not weed
It's stuff that comes
From Morocco hash
Yeah
And made me totally paranoid
And since smoked weed
A few times
And again
It just
It doesn't
I once ate happy pizza
In Cambodia
That was a funny story
Happy pizza with marijuana
Yeah
I had no idea
I had marijuana though
I was filming there
And the people that I was with
Were saying
You can just have this
And I spent the entire night
Thinking
That they wanted to come after
And rape me
And do all sorts of things
It was
The scariest night
Yeah
It's
It's not something
You should just
Dive right into
I tell anybody
If you've never smoked pot
And you're thinking
About doing it
Just take a tiny bit
A point where
You don't even think
It's working
Like that's what you want
You want like this
Ready
That's it
Just a little
Just a little
And if you can handle that
A couple hours later
Or the next day
Then take a little bit more
But don't take like five hits
And don't smoke hash
Oh my god
I know
Hash is crazy
It's crazy
That's like really concentrated
I know
That's all we had
Growing up in Portugal
Oh my goodness
We didn't have weed
Well you're not playing games
In Portugal
Not
You know it's only
One of the only countries
In the world
Who's the first one
To decriminalize
With spectacular results
Spectacular results
Yeah
It's really
That was one of the things
That I wanted to bring up
With you
Because it's so
It's such a complicated issue
Drugs
And it's so sad
To see
From your program
To see these poor farmers
To these kids
Who are
The chemists
Who are putting it together
And then
Carrying it out
On the backpack
And one of the chemists
Was actually
One of the guys
§07Transcript · 11:04–12:43
Who was actually
Carrying it on his back
Too
Which is even crazier
Yeah
And he jumped
Into the car
The first night
That we got access
To this illicit lab
Where we've been trying
For so long
To get this access
And suddenly
We're driving
In the middle of the night
To go up to this area
Where we're supposed
To meet him
And suddenly
The guy driving our car
Our guide
Basically stops the car
The door opens
This guy jumps in
And they're speaking
In Spanish
And I interrupt
And I say
What's happening
Who are you
You know
Our car has all our gear
And my team
And he's like
Oh sorry
Sorry
Hi I'm the chemist
I think
What?
I'm the one
Who's going to take you
Down to my cocaine lab
Is the guy who's driving
Is his name
Ceviche?
Yeah
That's his real name?
Yeah
Isn't that weird?
I mean that's his nickname
Oh like Taco
Yeah
In front of Dan's name
So when you first started
So when you first started
To put this show together
How did you make
These connections?
Like how do you
How do you do that
Without revealing sources?
Yeah for sure
It's been
I've been doing it
For over 15 years
Right
So I've been working
In the underworld
In black markets
Almost my whole career
As a journalist
So I have connections
In a lot of places
But mostly
We really rely
A lot on local journalists
They're really
Sort of the unsung heroes
Of our industry
They usually
Don't get the credit
And they're usually
The ones that have
The most to lose
If something goes wrong
So we take
We protect
Our
The people that talk to us
Our sources
We take that very seriously
We disguise their faces
We make sure they're okay
With what they look like
We change their voices
We don't reveal locations
I mean it's a lot of work
Put into making absolutely sure
That no one
§08Transcript · 12:43–14:27
You know
That law enforcement
Isn't going to find them
And that's because
That's what you do
As a journalist
You're there to witness
And to report
And inform
What is their motivation
To help you?
I think it's three reasons
One is ego
These are some of the best
Of the best
At what they do
You know the best
We filmed
With one of the best
Guys at finishing
Fake U.S. dollars
In Peru
He was by hand
You know
Note by note
Finishing
Each single one of them
To make it look
And smell
And feel
And taste
Like a real dollar
And he's the best
At what he does
And nobody knows
What he does
His family doesn't know
And so we give them
Opportunity to disguise
Their identity
And to sort of boast
And talk about
What they're passionate about
You know the same
With the chemists
The same with the
Sinaloa chemists
That we filmed
Making fentanyl
In front of us
So I think partly
It's that
Then it's impunity
In a lot of these
Parts of the world
Where we filmed
There's complete impunity
So they don't see
Really a downside
To talking to
An international
Recognized name
Like Nagio
And there's
Trust there as well
And then lastly
And I think
Most surprising for me
But I think
It's the biggest amount
The biggest reason
We were given constantly
Is this idea
That they know
They're considered
The bad people
They know
They're the most
Shunned people
In our society
And we're giving them
An opportunity
To tell their story
And how
People really want
Others to know
To know
Why they fall
Into a life
Of crime
Or why they become
Outlaws
And that
Was a really big
Goal for me
In this documentary
Was to
Even again
The people
That are more
§09Transcript · 14:27–16:07
That we think
Have nothing in common
With us
Actually do
And no matter
How far
You travel
Into the fringes
Of our society
That you can still
Find people
That are redeemable
And relatable
We're just lucky
If we live here
We're just lucky
You're just lucky
That you're born
In you know
If you live in Austin
You're lucky you're born here
If you live in LA
Or San Francisco
You're lucky
If you're born in Chicago
You're lucky
Absolutely
I say that all the time
We won the lottery ticket
And I don't think
Most people
If you don't travel
And you don't experience this
Like I've been privileged to
I don't think we realize that
We're not grateful enough for that
I think it needs to be shown
In like what you showed
In that cocaine episode
You see these people
You see these children
Playing on that car
And you know
And hanging out
By these cocoa leaves
That are being dried out
And you realize like
Oh this is
This is not what I thought it was
This isn't
You know
Some movie
Where you got these bad guys
That are you know
Guarding the farm
With machine guns
Like this is not it
Like you just have
Poor farmers
Yeah I mean
That exists too
You know
We filmed a lot of
Armed guards
Protecting their money
And their operations
As well
But I would say
But I would say
That in the vast majority
Of cases
It really is
The lack of opportunities
I really don't believe
That anyone
Is born one day
And decides
Hey
You know
What I want to do
Is I want to become
A sicario
For the Sinaloa cartel
And be killed
And be killed
When I'm 25 years old
I want to kill people
And then be killed
When I'm 25
Which happened
The poverty was
It was obvious
Even in the people
That were protecting
Their crops
And everything
Like they have
Poor
They have
Shitty old guns
§10Transcript · 16:07–17:49
With like iron sights
On them
And shitty rifles
Shitty old guns
Yeah
You can see
Like this is not
Some like
Super sophisticated
Operation
Of
It's
It's
Taking advantage
Of people
That
Or is it even
It's just like
This is the ecosystem
Right
And the ecosystem
This is what
I was going to get at
Before
Only exists
Because
Drugs are illegal
And if the
Ecosystem was different
If drugs were legal
And then
I mean
How long would it take
How many decades
Would it have to take
Before a large
Pharmaceutical company
Or some alcohol company
Or a tobacco company
Said
Fuck it
Let's grow coke
And then
Just started selling it
Legally
Like 100% pure cocaine
The price would probably drop
It would be
Much more accessible
Would people do it more
Is the question
You know
That's what we're seeing
With the marihuana business
In california right now
Yeah
Where it was legalized
And what's happening
Is that the people
That have been
Operating these
At the time
Illegal shops
For weed
And operations for weed
Are now being kicked out
Of the business
And there's all these
Bigger companies
Coming in
And taking
You know
Taking away the business
From them
From them
Well there's a little bit
Of that
But there's still
A lot of people
That are just growing it now
And there
It's not just big businesses
It's all
I know a lot of people
That grow pot
It's a lot of small businesses
Too
And doing so illegally still
The black market
Is still huge in california
For weed
Because people
Don't want to pay taxes
Well that was the thing
Up in humboldt
You know
Like in the emerald triangle
Or whatever they call it up there
Like they didn't want
Any part
§11Transcript · 17:49–19:19
Like there's people
Out there that grew pot
That voted against
It being legalized
And you know
I have friends
That were trying
To explain it to me
They're like
We don't want
This to be legal
I'm like
You are
Cutting off your nose
To spite your face
Like
You're missing
The whole
I get you don't
Want to pay taxes
But do you
Do you like
Living under the threat
Of being locked
In a cage
And do you think
That the other people
That grow it
And sell it
Or the other people
That even possess it
Don't you
Don't you want
Progress in this regard
Where kids
Can grow up
And become adults
In a world
Where you have
Autonomy
You have control
Over your body
You have the freedom
Because like I was saying
To this one guy
I was like
He was anti-marijuana
We had this conversation
And I said
Okay
Do you think
It should be illegal
He goes
Yeah
I go
Do you understand
What illegal means
It means
You can put someone
In jail
For doing something
That you don't agree with
That doesn't hurt
Anybody other than yourself
Right
Other than the person
That's doing it
Like why would
If it was just two of us
The only two people
In the world
And you thought pot
Should be illegal
And you made the rule
And I wanted to smoke pot
You would lock me in a cage
Does that make sense
No it doesn't
So why does it make sense
If there's 200 million people
Or 2 billion people
No
It doesn't
It doesn't make sense
It doesn't
With adults
Adults should be able
To do whatever
If you could go buy
Whiskey
Which I like whiskey
You should be able
To buy whiskey
Why
Why can't you buy pot
It makes no sense
And we know
Whiskey will fuck you up
We know
There's a reason
§12Transcript · 19:19–21:03
Why Alcoholics Anonymous
Exists
Right
People have huge problems
With alcohol
Why
Why can't we figure out
How to do that
With these other compounds
And they're trying
To do that in Oregon
You know Oregon
Just legalized everything
They decriminalized everything
Including steroids
They decriminalized
Psychedelics
They decriminalized everything
Which is going to be
Very weird
To see how that works
Well you have the example
Of Portugal though
Right
And it's again
It's worked really well
Incarceration rates
Have gone down
AIDS which was high
Went down
All the money
That the government
Was spending on
Incarcerating people
They're now spending
On rehab centers
And making sure
That people get
The health they need
And people with addiction
And this is hard drugs
I'm not talking about
Meat of course
I'm talking about heroin
Yeah
And people with addictions
That's gone down as well
It's really crazy
It's been
There's a problem
With people too
That if you tell them
They can't do something
They want to do it
If you tell them
Something's illegal
They want to be naughty
Also there's a lot of money
I think mostly
It's about the money
That's to be made
With an illegal business
Yes
And I'm not just
Talking about the traffickers
I'm talking about corruption
I'm talking about where
All that money ends up
But in this
What I wanted to get to
Is like
In doing this show
And seeing these people
From the poor farmers
To these kids
That are risking their lives
And as you said
Seeing their friends
Get murdered
For this drug
And they're making
A tiny fraction
Of the profit off of this
To getting to these nightclubs
And even the guy
That you showed in Miami
That was selling coke
Like
Even he was making
A pittance
In comparison
To the cartels
In comparison to
It
It's just
Disheartening
It's like
I know they're trying
To get by
And I know
§13Transcript · 21:03–22:48
The guy was talking about
Like feeding his family
You know
But
You're also
You're
You're in this horrible system
That you're probably
Never going to get out
And if you do get out
What are you going to do now
Hey Mike
It says here
For the last 15 years
You've done nothing
Like what have you been doing
Oh I've been selling coke
Like you can't say that
Like I managed to get out
Of the game
Without getting shot
And killed
So I'm on the straight
And narrow
Like well
Thank you for your time
No one's going to hire you
No one's going to hire you
I get so much flack
For showing that side
For humanizing this
I definitely
Flack from who?
I get comments
On my work sometimes
You know
Especially since the show
Started airing
Where people reach out
And say
And you know
There's stories
You know
I understand part of it
It's for example
The first one
That we aired
We aired
The first two
Were the scams episode
And then the fentanyl one
Where we follow
The pipeline
Of fentanyl
All the way
From the coast of Mexico
Where we saw
We filmed
The precursor chemicals
That come from Asia
Being thrown overboard
And then we filmed
A speedboat
That belongs to the cartel
Or cartel operators
Picking up these barrels
And then moving them
Eventually to a lab
We saw fentanyl being made
We saw then
Fentanyl being packed
And then eventually
At the end
We saw it being smuggled
Into California
From Mexico
And we were there
When a woman
In this case
She was pregnant
American citizen
Drove into the United States
With five kilos
Of fentanyl
Inside
Hidden inside
Her car
And there was a moment
Where she actually gets
Called for secondary inspection
And we're close to her
We're filming
I mean we're not filming her
Because we're keeping
The cameras low
But I'm watching
What is happening
And as you know
I've been reporting
On the opiate crisis
§14Transcript · 22:48–24:36
For many years
And I've spent
Numerous amount
Countless times
With mothers
Who've lost loved ones
To the opiate epidemic
So to me
That was very hard
On my shoulders
The idea that
On one hand
I was seeing this woman
And I knew she had kids
She was pregnant
And I knew what that meant
For her family
If she got caught
And on the other hand
I also knew
What would that mean
Would mean for American families
If the drugs went across
And what came through
So it was a really hard time
For me as a journalist
And I think I get flack
For that
For not being
Absolutely clear
That you know
I think people would prefer
If I was just
Okay these are bad people
And because there's
So much suffering
Around some of these traits
Right such as fentanyl
And even cocaine
That I think people
Just have an easier
Time in life
Thinking of the world
As black and white
That they are bad people
We would never do that
You know
Us in that position
Would never do that
And I think it's a harder
More challenging look
Of life
If you realize
That actually
It's a lot more gray
And that people are
A lot more similar to us
Well I think that's
One of the reasons
Why your work is so important
Because you do take
Those risks
And you do
Show the human side
Of the people
That we like to demonize
We like to demonize them
And think of them
As being just evil
This evil scourge
That comes from
These other places
To our good place
Yeah
And I was there
To witness it
And I didn't do anything
To stop it
Is usually what I get told
They're foolish
The people that are saying
That are foolish
And I understand
Their perspective as well
I understand
Especially if they
Have loved ones
That they've lost
Of fentanyl
And I know people
I know people
That have died from it
And I know people
That have problems with it
And not just problems
It's like ruin their lives
I know people
That have had injuries
And then from that injury
They just went down a road
§15Transcript · 24:36–26:38
And never returned
And they went down a road
With the doctor
Prescribed opiates
And they never came back
And they're never the same again
Yeah
And now they're addicts
Yeah
I mean
It's the most helpless feeling
And if it's family members
And if it's someone you care about
It's
You don't know what you can do
You don't
No one
They don't want to listen
They're lost
And you
You will lose your life
Trying to help them
You will lose your life
If you try to pick them up
And wake them up every day
And take them to a rehab
And take them
You'll lose your life
Because there's not
You can't babysit an adult
So what do you do?
And so I see the perspective
From the person that's saying
You should do something
You should have stopped it
I do too
But I'm a journalist
Right
But you have to do it
The way you do it
Because there's not that many people
Doing it
The way you do it
There's very very few people
That are willing to show it
Raw like that
And that's what people need to see
We need to understand
That this is like
A super complex issue
Do you remember
There was a really corny
Drug ad
One of those say no to drug ads
From the Bush administration
I believe
I think it was the Bush administration
Where there was this guy
Who was one of these
Silly
Sort of like
Just the facts man
Republicans
And he's eating
They're eating in a restaurant
And the guy's eating
He's like
He goes
If you buy drugs
You support terrorism
And he's like
What?
What are you saying?
It was when the terrorism craze
I believe it was post 9-11
Oh wow
And he goes
Why do you say that?
He goes
Because it's a fact
It's a fact
And that's it
Like no stats
No nothing
But this guy
Who in a lot of people
Represents your father
Or your boss
This like
Really like
Cold
Sort of like
Fact based
No nonsense
Super successful guy
Who's telling this fool
This liberal fool
If you buy drugs
You support terrorism
And it was like
§16Transcript · 26:38–28:39
The weirdest
Campaign
And it's
It didn't work
And people mocked it
Oh surprising
Well it's just
But this is the attitude
That people have
Like you should stop them
You should stop them
Without ever questioning
What you're doing
Is so important
Because you're showing
You're showing
Human beings
Who got handed
Like a terrible roll
Of the dice
A bad hand of cards
That's it
And they're stuck
In this very poor village
In Peru
With dirt roads
And no money
And no opportunity
And no way out
And this is what
Most of the people do
They grow coca
Right
And we can either
Choose to ignore it
And pretend it's not there
And not do
You know
Just keep on demonizing
These people
And keep on consuming
And keep on buying
Because that's why
It's because there's demand
Or else it wouldn't exist
Or we can actually go
And shine a light
And try and understand
Why they happen
Why these people
Turn to black markets
And why the trade exists
And try to do something about it
Well in a lot of ways
It's as gross as it sounds
I think that is
Your expose on this
Is one of the best arguments
For legalization
Like to show people
Yes this is all horrible
However
You're not going to stop people
From doing drugs
People have been doing drugs
Since the beginning of time
If you say
People shouldn't do drugs
Because drugs are bad
Because it's a fact
If you're one of those guys
Like okay simple
Like you've just taken
Like one of the most complex
Nuanced problems
The world has ever known
Human beings love
To perturb their consciousness
They've been doing it forever
Monkeys do it
They drink fermented fruit
You know
They eat things
That they know
Can get them high
Fucking jaguars
Do it in the Amazon
They eat leaves
They know are psychedelic
And they lie down
And trip out
Animals love to do it
Humans are animals
We're never going to stop
And as long as
There's legal drugs too
By the way
There's so many drugs
Like just coffee
Right?
§17Transcript · 28:39–30:37
Cigarettes
You wanted a cigarette
Before the show started
Hey Joe
Sorry I ratted you out
It's only when I get nervous
But I mean look
These are drugs
These are all drugs
There's so many drugs
You know
Is that like a valid parallel
You know coffee and cocaine
No I don't think it is
But it's also a drug
Alcohol
Tobacco
All these different prescription drugs
These are all drugs
I don't think that we can keep doing
What we're doing
And pretending that we're doing
The right thing
Yeah and spending billions of dollars
In the process of trying to combat
Something
You know the drug war
You know the US
Has spent billions of dollars
In something that has been
A huge failure
Yeah
A huge failure
Like violence is increasing
In Mexico every year
The drugs are coming across
Easier than ever
Yeah
So it's not making a dent
You know
It really isn't
No
It's propping up
Organized crime
The same thing that happened
In America
During the
Prohibition
I mean that's where
Al Capone got all his money
That's where the Kennedys
Allegedly
Not necessarily true
Right
Supposedly not
Supposedly not
I think they got a good PR agent
These motherfuckers
But whoever
Was profiting off of
Moonshine
And illegal whiskey
They're still selling it
You know
Speakeasies were still open
They just
You know
You had a special
Knock on the door
And you had to know somebody
But they were still drinking
People like to drink
I don't do coke
And you don't do coke
So you and I
We could look at this
I think
As objectively as possible
I think
It should be legal
I don't want my children
To do it
I don't want my friends
To get addicted to it
Neither do I
But I don't want my children
But I also think
But I also think
Maybe the only way
We're going to really resolve it
Is if you have treatment centers
And rehabilitations
That are funded by
The profit
Off of legalized cocaine
And heroin
And all these other drugs
If we had
Look
If heroin was legal tomorrow
§18Transcript · 30:37–32:41
I'm not going to fucking do heroin
I don't want to do heroin
But it is legal
And Oxycontin
Exactly
That's basically the same thing
Right
There should be
If you want to make sense of this
There should be
Some sort of a percentage
Of the profits
That has to go
To rehabilitation centers
And then there's another one
Ibogaine
Ibogaine has been proven
To be the very best method
For many people
For kicking addictions
And not just addictions
Of chemicals
But addictions of
Like endogenous chemicals
Like gambling
Like people that are gambling addicts
Have found great relief
With Ibogaine
People that are addicted
To alcohol
People that are addicted
To a lot of different
Controlled substances
Have found amazing relief
Through Ibogaine
Ibogaine is not something
You get addicted to
It is a ruthlessly
Introspective drug
And you have to go to Mexico
To do it
There's Ibogaine clinics
My friend Ed Clay
He started a clinic
Down in Mexico
Because he got hooked on pills
Because he got hurt
And he wanted to figure out
How to get off of them
Found out about Ibogaine
Did it
It was so mind-blowing
He decided to open up a clinic
Wow
I knew it was for
I didn't know
I thought it was just for opiates
I had no idea that it cured
It helped cure
So many of the
A lot of personality disorders
Wow
Yeah
A lot of people
There's a lot of weird addictions
That people have
That are
In many ways
Connected to trauma
You know
Gabor Monte
Thinks that
Like almost all addiction
Is connected to childhood trauma
And he makes a very compelling
Argument about it
And it's interesting to hear him discuss it
Because everyone that I know
That's an addict
Has had a fucked up childhood
You know
It kind of makes sense
There's something there
That was off and wrong
Or there's abuse
Or there's something
And a lot of soldiers
There's a ton of soldiers
That come back
And they have severe PTSD
And then on top of that
They have CTE
So they have like legitimate
Trauma
Physical trauma
To their brain
And they wind up getting addicted
And they also get injured
In the field a lot
And then they're given Oxycontins
§19Transcript · 32:41–34:28
And other painkillers
And yeah
It's a recipe for disaster
Really
But we have this sort of
We're like a cat
Like my cat used to play this game
Where he would hide
But he would hide
And his tail would be sticking out
And I'm like
Bitch I see you
But if he couldn't see me
He thought I couldn't see him
And I'd grab his tail
And he'd poke his head out
And swat at me
And then he'd go back in there
I'm like
Bitch I see you
And we'd play games
You know
But it was fun
But I would laugh
But like
I think he thinks
That I can't see him
Because he can't see me
Like it's a childish game
But it's a fucking cat
Right
Yeah
We're playing this same
Kind of stupid game
You know
It's like
We're pretending
That drugs are illegal
When drugs are everywhere
Yeah
We're pretending
We're stopping drugs
By keeping them illegal
But we're just propping up
Organized crime
It's so much worse
This simplistic
Approach to it
This childlike approach to it
Is
There is not
A single intelligent person
If you laid out the facts
And they looked at it objectively
Would think that this is
A successful method
Of handling this
Yeah
And we keep spending money
You know
We keep pretending
That we don't know
That what we're doing
And the billions of dollars
We're spending on this
Is pretending that
It's making a difference
And it really isn't
And we have a war on it
Yeah
This is the shittiest war
That the United States
Has ever fought
If you think we did a bad job
In Vietnam
And Afghanistan
But at least we didn't
Like
The war on drugs
Has been a loss
Like they've lost
Every year
They've never won
The war on drugs
When you showed
Those coast guard people
That was
Incredibly illuminating
Because
The way that guy
Described it
Where he said
You're dealing with an area
That we patrol
That's larger than
The United States
And we have about
Four boats
And you're like
What?
§20Transcript · 34:28–36:05
He's like
Imagine
Four police cars
Patrolling
The entire United States
Then you know
How these drugs
Are getting in
Yeah
I've spent a lot of time
With law enforcement
And you hear their stories
And you know
They're really out there
And the front line
Is trying to make a difference
Most of them
And
Again and again
You hear
Just how frustrating
Their job is
Because they know
You know
That they're really
Not making a dent
But I think
It's also hard to admit
In many ways
Because this is
Their lives
And their livelihoods
That
If you talk to
Law enforcement
Even now
I actually just did
A story for season two
About weed
Black market weed
In California
And
And even now
You know
They will tell you
That that's
They think that
It shouldn't have
Been legalized
Because
They have a point
Black market weed
Has only exploded
Since legalization
But I don't think
That not making legal
Is
It's really about
The regulations
That are in place
In California
Sounds like
They're thinking
Like cops
The real problem
Is
My friend
John Norris
Who's been on
The podcast before
He is a game warden
And he was
He got a job
As a game warden
Because he loves
The outdoors
And he thought
He was just gonna
Check people's
Fishing licenses
And things along
Those lines
And along the way
And along the way
He started finding
These grow-ups
On public land
And so
His department
Became a tactical
Drug enforcement department
To fight cartels
Who are illegally
Growing marijuana
And so they have
Like trained
Belgian Malinois
Who attack
These cartels
They get shot at
§21Transcript · 36:05–37:44
He's lost members
Of his team
Like
They're like
A tactical group
Now
And he wrote
A job
Was it
Hidden
Hidden war
Was that
What the book
We have it
At the old studio
We spent the summer
Actually filming that
Those operations
Hidden war
It's crazy
Yeah
It's crazy
His take is
That what happened
Was when they
Made marijuana legal
What they did
Was they
Made growing it
Illegally
A misdemeanor
So in most of the country
Marijuana is still illegal
In most states
Right
So if you have 50 states
How many states
Is like 19 or something
Where it's legal
How many states
Is it legal
80%
Of all
Of the marijuana
Supplied to the states
Where it's illegal
Is grown
In California
And it's grown
On public land
And it's grown
By the cartels
So they move
These guys in
And they're
Incredibly industrious
I mean you want to talk
About hard working dudes
These guys walk in
Like 10
15 miles
Into public land
With all the equipment
On their back
Like their camp
They have like
The hoses
And they take the water
They create their own dams
And take the water
From these creeks
And they run it
Into their grow ops
That's how they found it
They thought that
Like a farmer
Was channeling
The river
Or a creek
Away from
These steelhead
And salmon fisheries
And it turned out
It was like
The cartel
So they followed
So they followed
The dry creek
Up into this
Crazy marijuana grow up
We went to one
Of these grows
This summer
With an operation
Much like that
And it was funny
Because all of the
Law enforcement
That was there
They were brought
§22Transcript · 37:44–39:07
In sort of
You know those ropes
On helicopters
Where they come
And they drop them
Because it's really
Out there
In the middle
Of the forest
But they couldn't
Do that to us
So we had to actually
Drive part of the way
And then hike down
And it took us
Like you know
Almost a whole day
Of hiking through
Like thick brush
To get to this area
Where they were
Diverting water
And where there's
Marijuana growing
All around us
And it was all
Cartel operated
And you realize
Just like what
These guys have to
Go through
Because then it's
Also on a weekly basis
They have to get
Supplies and food
And they have to
Get the you know
The drugs out of there
So it is actually
A lot of work
If those guys
Were working
Like a regular job
They'd like be
The best employees ever
They're like
This guy's
Dude that's what I see
In all of these
Black markets
You know
These are some
Of the most industrious
You might not
Obviously you don't
Agree with what
They're doing
You might not
Even like them
But you have
To give it to them
They're industrious
They're hardworking
They're really
Creative
You know
The things that
I've seen
That people do
To hide their product
To make their product
To make it better
To make it stronger
It's really incredible
Well it's crazy
To watch the method
When you see the method
Of how they cut
The cocaine
On your show
Where they're
Pouring cement
Into it
You're like
What?
And then gasoline
Just giant jug
And then like
All the other shit
That they're
All the different chemicals
Acid
They're like
Oh my god
This is
I had no idea
I had no idea
That's how they make it
Yeah so another episode
That we filmed recently
§23Transcript · 39:07–40:58
Was here in Austin
Was actually meth
Meth is in Austin?
Yes
Austin's got a meth problem
On my way driving here
To the show
I passed by the place
Where I had filmed
Just three weeks ago
Actually
This guy in his hotel room
A dealer
A meth dealer
But he was washing
One of the things he did
Before he started getting clients
And the clients are not
The people that you think
Are meth users
At all
By the way
We filmed
We interviewed a lawyer
We interviewed a mom
With kids at home
It was an entrepreneur
Not at all the people
That you think are meth users
And this guy
Before he started
He's washing the meth
And that's because he says
He prides himself
On selling good quality meth
But he had purchased it
From Mexico
And he wasn't sure
About the quality
So he washes it
I can't remember
What it is
The product that he puts in
But it's to see
All the other stuff
That comes out
And then you can see
Just sort of
All this other chemicals
That are put in there
And you sort of realize
And when I was filming
In the cocaine lab
The same thing
And the fentanyl lab too
The amount of shit
That goes into these drugs
If that alone
Is not going to dissuade
You from doing them
Is yeah
It's chemicals
It's gasoline
It's yeah
Lime
Lime is something
That goes into
A lot of these
Yeah
They use lime
To get rid of bodies
Yeah
Yeah
This meth guy
Was he a big
Breaking Bad fan
Was he a big
Brian Cranston fan
Wanted to
Be the guy
He was actually
Much younger
I don't
I'm sure
You know one guy
That we filmed
For the fentanyl episode
It was a cartel chemist
So this guy
Was a bioengineer
And incredibly smart
And knowledgeable
And we met him
In this abandoned location
Where he's basically
Making fentanyl
And pressing it
Into the M30 pills
Which are fake
It goes round
§24Transcript · 40:58–42:33
Back to the beginning
Of the opiate crisis
Because they make them
To look like Oxycontin
Like the 30 milligram pills
That Purdue Pharma
And Oxycontin had
And so
But it's pure fentanyl
Essentially
And they're becoming
Really popular
On the streets of America
And part
You know
Really deadly stuff
And so we saw him
Making it
And you never know
With these guys
Like I spent time
In some of these
Illicit labs
Where you kind of
Get a sense
That shit could go wrong
Very fast
Because they have no idea
What they're dealing with
And these are very potent chemicals
But in this case
You know
It's not easy to make
I mean
It is
Because it's cheap
And once you know
How to do it
You know how to do it
But it's
You know
I can't show up
And try to make
The whole thing
Could explode
Just because
The chemicals
Are so potent
And yet
Here he was
And we were wearing
Our hazmat suits
And our masks
And everything
And I started talking to him
And he was
I mean
I suddenly thought
I was talking to
Walter White
From Breaking Red
He was exactly that
Like a geek
When it came to
Chemistry
And had always loved chemistry
And you know
Had worked in chemistry
For a while
And then was approached
By the Sinaloa cartel
And they needed a guy
Who knew how to make this stuff
And he's decided
Why not
I can make a lot more money
Making this
And now he's like
One of the biggest chemists
For the Sinaloa cartel
Yeah
So
When you talk to the people
That did the meth
Do they have a reason?
The people that
That actually consume it
When you said
You talk to
Oh that use it
Yeah the mom
And the lawyers
It's a good party
Drug
It's a good
It's a good
It helps with inhibition
Oh I bet
For people
Yeah
§25Transcript · 42:33–44:39
And apparently
It really helps
With sex
Especially
It's very consumed
In the gay community
As well
It helps
Yeah
Just having a good time
And
Just getting wild
Yeah getting wild
Yeah
Yeah
Have you done Adderall
I have not
Good for you
You and I together
Give me some knuckles woman
All right
You haven't either
No but that's a tempting one
People keep telling me
How amazing it is
For like just cleaning your house
Is it really
That you just get
Oh my god
Oh my god
Yeah
Jamie
You've perhaps participated
In some
I've taken it twice
But I've done ProVigil now twice
Not the same
In any way shape or form
No ProVigil is
I have done ProVigil
And I've done NuVigil too
What's that?
It's a drug that
Now this is
I might be wrong about this
We might have to google this
I believe it was created
As a performance enhancing drug
But then they said
Well you can't just sell it
As a performance enhancing drug
As a cognitive enhancer
And I do believe
It has some cognitive boosting
Like proven cognitive boosting functions
But I think they decided
To sell it as a narcolepsy drug
As a
When they found out
That it keeps people awake
It's amazing for road trips
This is what I love it for
Like if I'm
Like if I used to drive
To San Diego
To do a gig
And the gig would be over
At like midnight
I'm like fuck it
I want to be home
And it would drive two hours
Like around an hour in
And you start getting that road sleepiness
With ProVigil
I'm listening to books on tape
I'm fucking howling at the moon
Like I'm wide awake
But I'm not on speed
Like it's not
Like your heart doesn't beat fast
You don't get like
You just are weirdly awake
Is this an over the counter drug?
No
No you have to get a prescription
But it's easy to get a prescription
Like alcohol drugs
But I don't think
There's a lot of drawbacks to it
It's so weird
That Tim Ferriss
Who is all about biohacking
And all about like
You know the four hour body
The four hour work week
He didn't put it in his book
And he told me
He didn't want to put it in his book
Because he was worried
That people were going to just
§26Transcript · 44:39–46:26
Fucking eat it like candy
He's like
I don't want to endorse this
He goes
Because I don't think
There's such a thing
As a biological free lunch
He goes
When something is doing
That to you
There's got to be something
That's happening on the other end
There's got to be something
And I don't know what it is
And I don't want to be the guy
That says hey do this
So I thought that was very interesting
So how different is Adderall
From that then
I don't know
I don't know
Because I have not done Adderall
A lot different
Is it?
A lot different
Yeah
I'm looking it up
Adderall has amphetamine in it
This is not
It says a wakefulness promoting agent
I don't know what that means
Right
Yeah see
But see if the origin of
Pro Vigil was the first one
And I believe New Vigil
They did
They changed it
They altered it slightly
To get around a patent
Or something
I forget what the exact reason was
But these are not
They're not speed
But I think they are addictive
At least addictive
In the fact that
It has an effect
An impact
Like I was very careful
Not to take it too often
Like sometimes
I'd take it before a podcast
And I'd be like
Hmm
Wait even more energy
Than right now?
Yes
Well I came here
Right from the gym
So I'm pretty
Pretty amped up
But
Is that
Wait how do you stand
On steroids by the way?
What's your
Because one of our episodes
Was about steroids
I think that steroids
Are
Many
There's
There's a lot of
Different things
That are legal now
In terms of like
You can get
Testosterone replacement therapy
Hormone replacement therapy
And they basically
Give you
The vial
Right
But only if you have
Low levels
Of testosterone
Right?
Or can you just
You can just
Kind of get it
And you can get
Low levels
Pretty easy
All you have to do
Like if you want
Low levels
Folks out there
This is not my advice
But I'm just telling you a fact
§27Transcript · 46:26–48:11
All you have to do
Is eat a massive meal
And then get your blood taken
Because if you want
To take your blood
Like the idea
Is they take your blood
When you're fasting
Right?
So you're supposed to fast
I think it's 10 hours
Before your blood work
The reason for that
Is then your hormone levels
Will you know
They'll level out
They'll be normal
If you crap
Like that feeling
That you get
When you have a massive meal
Especially like
High carbohydrate
High sugar
Like if you eat like
Three big macs
And fries
And a large coke
You'll be like
Boom
That feeling
Get your blood done
Right then
You will show
Very low hormone levels
You'll show
Low growth hormone
You'll show
Low testosterone
You'll show
Low everything
Yeah
Another thing is
When people have done
Steroids
See
I know about this
Initially
Because of the UFC
And the UFC
Had a
There was a
Testosterone
A TUE
Testosterone use exemption
And that testosterone use exemption
Allowed people
To replace their hormones
If they showed
Low levels of hormones
So testosterone replacement therapy
Was for people
That had some sort of
A condition
That would
Allow the doctor
To prescribe testosterone
For them
The problem with that
Is a lot of the people
That had low testosterone
Had low testosterone
Because they were taking steroids
Yeah exactly
Right
So you take steroids
Your endocrine system crashes
And then
You get on
Testosterone replacement
Therapy
And you become a super person
This was a real problem
In the UFC
For several years
There was like
Two or three years
Where
There was a few guys
And I don't need to name names
Because
All you folks know who they are
All the people that are
MMA fans
Know exactly who I'm talking about
But these guys
Where their career
Was kind of stagnated
They became
Fucking murderers
§28Transcript · 48:11–49:59
For like three years
And then
USADA
The US anti-doping agency
Got involved with the UFC
And now USADA
Is randomly tests everybody
They kill testosterone
Use exemptions
No more testosterone
Replacement therapy
And people's bodies
Melted
They shrank
And then you became
Entirely
The sport is
As clean
As you can make it
With today's science
And today's technology
But there's some sports
Like
Let's look at
Power lifting
Or let's look at
Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is the best one
Doesn't exist
It doesn't exist
What do you mean
Testing doesn't exist
Bodybuilding doesn't exist
Oh right
It doesn't exist
If it weren't for steroids
Bodybuilding with steroids
Exists
Regular bodybuilding
Like
I had a friend
My friend Brian
Who lived in Boston
Was a natural bodybuilder
And he was very dedicated
And he was like
Legitimate natural bodybuilder
He worked out very hard
He was
He ate very clean
And he was like
Super super dedicated
And you would swear
He was on steroids
He was big
I mean like
Big giant arms
Like really thick guy
But just really dedicated
He is
Nothing
Like those
Giants
That you see at the gym
That are on steroids
There are people
That walk around
Like if you go to
Like a Gold's gym
In Venice
In the heyday
When all the elite bodybuilders
Would go there
They don't even look like humans
They look like walls
With feet
I saw it
I went to a bodybuilding competition
In Vegas for the show
Where we were following
This kid
Who was mostly not doing steroids
At this time
And like your friend
He was trying to see
If he could make it
Into this competition
Without
The heavy use of
Or heavily using
Steroids
And other
PEDs
And it was
He went on stage
And you could see
The difference
Between him
And the other guys
I mean everybody else
§29Transcript · 49:59–51:36
There was heavily
Using PEDs
And then you'd see him
We actually followed him
We were with this guy
Called Tony Huge
Who calls himself
Tony Huge
Tony Huge
Have you heard of this guy?
He's pretty incredible
He has a huge following
A huge following
Yeah
And he calls himself
Dr. Tony Huge
Even though he's not a doctor
But he is a lawyer
And he's
If anyone
Is interested in
He's basically
A spokesperson
For steroids
He's
People who are
Bodybuilders
He's also a bodybuilder
Himself
And goes to gyms
And competitions
And he was with this kid
And kids adore him
I mean we spoke to
Teenagers
Who look up to Tony Huge
And want to do everything
He does
Which is mostly PEDs
And this kid
He wanted to be
He went to Vegas
To help this kid out
And in the middle of
How old was this kid?
He was like 19
I believe
His name's Zach
From Florida
Super nice kid
Met his mom
All of it
But had tried steroids
Had had sort of
A bad experience
With steroids
Decided he was going
To try and do it
With other things
But not steroids
Not testosterone itself
But other substances
Tony Huge
Was helping him out
He gets there
Day of the competition
He goes on stage
And again
He looks like
The others around him
Who have been doing steroids
Look so much
Stronger than him
And he comes out
Yet you know
Again super dedicated kid
Like this is his life
Spends most of his time
At the gym
And eats right
And all that
And in the middle
Of the competition
Tony Huge says
Okay it's time for us
To go back to your apartment
And get you ready
For round two
And they go back
And they go back
And we filmed all of this
And he opens up
A big suitcase
And inside this suitcase
It's like the
Mary Poppins suitcase
That more and more
Shit's coming out
You know
And starts giving him
§30Transcript · 51:36–53:18
Injections of insulin
And all sorts
I don't know
Half of the things
That he was giving
And the kid's like
Are you sure
This is okay
Are you sure
This is okay
And I'm worried for him
He says okay
I'm starting to feel
My heart beating
Really fast
You know
Don't you worry
And then he goes back
And you can actually
See the transformation
In this kid's body
Within an hour
Of him taking these drugs
I am not joking
What is the transformation
What happened
His vessels
His blood veins
Vascularity
Yes
Were popping
His veins
So that's something good
Apparently
For these kind of competitions
You're funny
The way you talk
That's something good
Apparently
I know
I know
It was my first time
At a bodybuilding competition
For sure
It's weird
It's so weird
But so fascinating
It's weird when you see
Those people in real life
Yeah
I love
Worlds that look nothing
Like what I'm used to
I love
I'm so fascinated by them
I was watching a video
Last night
On Vice
Of a woman
Who does bodybuilding
She's my height
And my weight
She weighed 196 pounds
And so
And she has like
Her neck
Her neck
Is like my neck
But her traps
Are even bigger than mine
They start like here
They go straight down
Her shoulders were massive
And she was talking
Like this
This is what I eat
Yeah
This is every morning
I have to consume
6,000 calories
She sounded like the rock
Yeah
Like it was
Crazy
Bizarre
It was so bizarre
It was so strange
To see
This weird obsession
It's
They're like
Sculptors
Right
And in a way
It is kind of an art form
Totally
But what they're doing
Is freakish
But they're all into it
They all love it
§31Transcript · 53:18–54:55
Yeah
This Tony huge guy
I actually kind of
Grew very fond of him
Just because he's so honest
About what he does
I don't think his message
Is very safe
For kids
You know
Especially
And you know
Taking steroids
You know the side effects
And you have to be careful
But yet
Him saying
You know
I am basically
A human experiment
On myself
And I'm trying
All of these things
And
Is there videos of him
Can we see what he looks like
This Tony huge
Do you look ridiculous
He's going to love this
Oh Tony
No he actually
Doesn't look ridiculous
He's like
Yeah
Oh Tony
Tony huge
Well there's a guy
Who died recently
Who was famous
For looking ridiculous
His name is
Rich Piana
Do you know who that is
Yeah I remember
When I was doing
Research for this story
I was hearing about that
They don't exactly know
If steroids killed him
But it's like
You know
If you see a body
And then there's a gun
Right next to the body
And the gun
The body has a bullet hole
Oh he's pretty big
Yeah
He's big
Yeah but he's tiny
Compared to Rich Piana
No yeah
He's
Oh he looks very good
See he doesn't look preposterous
He looks like
A very big strong guy
Like right there
With the shirt off picture
Still he looks great
Like that's
That is a guy
Who's in very good shape
Yeah
So he says
Okay
This is
I used to be handsome
This is maybe
Six or seven years ago
When I was 31 or 32
I was still a full-time lawyer
Wearing a suit
Going to court
Meeting clients
Da da da
So yeah
So that is
Basically he decided
To start taking steroids
That's when he decided
Is that what it says
Okay
So that
That can be achieved naturally
That absolutely
Can be achieved naturally
Especially with good genetics
And that's one of the things
That I had
§32Transcript · 54:55–56:50
Do you know who Ronnie Coleman is?
No
Ronnie Coleman's
If there's a
Mount Rushmore
Of bodybuilding
He's on it
100%
It's like Arnold
Franco Colombo
Lee Haney
I mean how many
Mount Rushmore
Doesn't have enough heads
Right
Dorian Yates
But Ronnie Coleman
Is without doubt
On there
He was a multiple time
Mr. Olympia
Enormous guy
With
Yeah
With spectacular genetics
Spectacular genetics
And Ronnie did the podcast
And he said that
When he was
He's really
In rough shape now
Like he can barely walk
His back is really fucked up
He's had many many surgeries
Wow
And he's basically had
Every disc
And his back fused
Except for one
And has a really hard time
Walking and even standing up
But when
But that's because
You know he pushed himself
So hard
So it wasn't just the steroids
He pushed himself
Through pain
So when he got injured
He didn't give a fuck
He just kept working out hard
And stacking weights
And you know
Squatting
Spectacular amounts of weight
But he was
I believe he said
He was 30
Before he took steroids
So he was a full time cop
And he was
He was competing
Just like
I mean
Perfect genetics
Just perfect
I mean he's just a stud
And then
Realized he couldn't beat these guys
Yeah there's no way
Tired of getting his ass kicked
And so
Then he got on
Like he had
That's when he was a cop
How'd you get pulled over
By that guy
Yes sir
Here's
License sir
Sir
Sir don't squeeze my head
Like a zit
He's just a really sweet guy too
An awesome guy
But he was very honest about it
He's like
I couldn't compete
I was tired of getting my butt
My butt kicked
Right
And then he started taking it
So in the USC
It's not allowed now
No
No no no no no
No no no
A lot of people get busted
They get busted for trace amounts
That are in supplements
§33Transcript · 56:50–58:50
Like say if you buy like creatine
There's a lot of like cheap supplements
That you'll buy
That they make them in vats
And the vats that they make them in
They're like in China
And they don't clean these vats
So they might have made steroids
Right before they made your shit
And then they'll throw the next thing in there
And mix up the creatine
And there's a lot of that
A lot of cross contamination
You know I just interviewed recently
For the traffic podcast
We also have a podcast
I just started doing a podcast
Congratulations
I was so nervous
Before talking to
I've interviewed so many people
But I'd never done it for a podcast
So I was here sitting
To talk to my first podcast interviewee
And I was shaking
I don't know
Because when it's something new
And you've never done it
I don't know
I just got nervous
Am I going to be able
To be half as good as Joe?
If you ever get nervous
Go and listen to the early ones
That I did
They're fucking terrible
Yeah
It's like me in television
The first things that I did on TV
It was my husband actually
Who you met Darren
Yes
Traveling around the world with me
Filming
Our first assignment
We were freelance journalists
We bought a little camcorder in Syria
I was living in Syria at the time
9-11 had happened
I wanted to be close to the action
Learn Arabic
And we bought a little camcorder
And we went
And we filmed with jihadis
Crossing into Iraq
To fight against the Americans
These were Syrian jihadis
And it was our first story
As freelancers
And you know
There was a moment
Where one of us
Had to decide
Who's going to be on camera
And I'm much more gregarious
Than he is
He's quieter than I am
And so we decided
It was me
And he would turn the camera
To me and say
Okay now tell us
What's happening
And I could not
Put two words together
And he kept on giving me
Shit for this
Like how can you not say
Something that is so simple
And I was like
Oh yeah wait a second
I picked up the camera
And I turned it to him
I said okay now you say
Those words
And he couldn't say them either
Well you figured it out
You're great at it now
You're great at it now
But I was going to say
That I interviewed Tony Bosch
Do you know Tony Bosch right?
No
You do
I do?
Yes you do
Because I think you had
One of your friends
Made the film about him
He's the guy
§34Transcript · 58:50–1:00:28
The steroids
In baseball guy
He was the guy
That was providing
Steroids
Oh the Billy Corbin documentary
Screwball
Is that what it was?
Yeah which is amazing
It's so good
I can't recommend that enough
It's so good
So we interviewed him
For the podcast
It's hilarious
The way Billy Corbin
Filmed it with the little kids
Oh my god
It's brilliant
That's the guy
Okay
And he was saying
I was asking
Isn't it for somebody
He apparently loves
He loves baseball
Has been a huge fan
Of baseball all his life
And then became
The supplier of steroids
For big shots
In baseball
And I was asking
Don't you think
That's unfair
Considering
That these are illegal
And it's just
Some people are taking them
And others aren't
He was like
Yeah it's unfair
Not to take them
Because everybody's taking them
Yes
It's
Well it's the way
I felt about Lance Armstrong
You know
Like when people
The real problem
With Lance Armstrong
Was not that
He was taking drugs
It was a lie
The real problem
Was the lies
Yeah
And also suing
The other people
That were calling him out
But in his eyes
They betrayed him
And that they were
Selling him out
So that they could get
A cheaper deal
But they were doing it too
And they were all admitting
They were doing it
So they were getting
You know
Immunity
If you
Got rid of
All the people
That tested positive
When they took away
Lance Armstrong's
Jerseys or whatever
You get a jersey
From winning
You know
All his victories
I mean he has them
On the wall
In his house
If you took away
All those
Well who wins then
Who wins those years
Well you have to go back
To 18th place
To find someone
Who didn't test positive
Wow
Do you know that
No I had no idea
18th place
And that guy
§35Transcript · 1:00:28–1:01:58
Probably just had
A really good chemist
And he probably
Is full of shit too
Or maybe he like
Cycled off
Right before the race
It's a dirty sport
Yeah
Bill Burr has a great bit
About it
Bill Burr the comedian
Has a hilarious bit
About like
Our psycho
Is better than your psycho
It's like
You're dealing
With a dirty sport
It's an entirely
Dirty sport
They've been blood doping
And they've been
Doing EPO
And testosterone
And all these
Different things
And then
There's a real argument
That it's actually
Healthier
To do that
With drugs
Than it is to not
Do with drugs
Because without the drugs
Your body has such
A difficult time
Recovering
From the massive
Amount of work
You have to do
When you're doing
Something at the
Tour de France
Because you're racing
Every day
For a long time
Yeah
It's superhuman
Yeah
You know another sport
I had no idea
Where apparently
It's used heavily
It's in tennis
Did you know that?
Really?
Yeah
Well I did know
That one
We don't have to say
The name
But there was
A prominent tennis star
That the world
Anti-doping agency
Or one of them
Came knock on
This person's door
And they locked
Themselves in a safe room
And
With
Yeah
They said
Oh I think
I think there's
An intruder
Someone trying to
Come and get me
And they avoided
Being tested
Was this reported?
Yes
Yes
Oh I don't know
Who that is
Very popular story
Yeah
No need to dig up dirt
Jamie
Don't google it
Don't google it
I happen to already know
Who you're talking about
So I don't know
I bet you do
And a lot of people
Are like
§36Transcript · 1:01:58–1:03:42
Hmm
Things that make you go
Hmm
Yeah
I didn't know that though
But I just assumed
That any explosive
Athletic endeavor
Whatever it is
Sprinting
That was the other thing
Remember when Ben Johnson
Won the Olympics
Carl Lewis was on
The shit too
That's what's crazy
Like Ben Johnson
Got shamed
And Carl Lewis was like
Like he was doing drugs too
They were all doing it
Yeah
Like
The dirty secret
About Olympic sprinting
Apparently
Is that they're all
Doing something
Yeah
Then it's
When you start asking yourself
At what point
Does it make sense
To make it illegal
Why not just like
Have you seen
Icarus
The Brian Fogle documentary
Yeah it's so good
Woo
It's so good
So good
So good
And it's all about that
Folks
It's all about
The Sochi Olympics
And about how Russia
Essentially
Doped the entire
Olympic team
It's insane
It's insane
Insane how they did it
It's crazy
The documentary is so well done
Because Brian Fogle
Who is the
The director
And the guy
Who made the documentary
He
He had a plan
And his plan was
Film him
With no drugs
Doing this bike race
And then come back
Next year
With the supervision
Of an
Anti-doping
Expert
From the Soviet Union
In the middle
Of all this happening
It gets exposed
That the Sochi Olympics
That the urine samples
Had been tampered with
And that there was like
Micro scratches on there
That they had devised
Some sort of a method
To open up the urine samples
And replace the urine
With clean urine
And holy shit
It's crazy
It's insane
It is the craziest
That guy is still
The Russian guy
Is still in hiding
I had no idea
Oh yeah
He's under
He gave states evidence
So he's like
This guy is under
§37Transcript · 1:03:42–1:05:16
Witness Protection Program
Here in the US?
Yes
Allegedly
He might be in Antarctica
Who the fuck knows
But they offered him
As a guest
Like in some sort
Of remote fashion
I think remotely
And you didn't want to?
Well
I'd talk about it
It's just one of those
I don't want to put him
In jeopardy
I feel like that's one of those
You don't want to do what I do
By talking to people
You're out
You're out in the open
I just think
That guy's life
Is in like
Real danger
Right now
I mean he exposed
The Soviet Union
The state
Like the state
Sponsored
Anti-doping agency
I don't
I mean
The documentary
And the whole case
Itself
For sure
Put that guy's life
In danger
Yeah
That was a good one
It was
You know
It's whenever
Documentaries
When
You start by watching
And you think
It's going to be
About one thing
And then something
Completely different
Those are the best stories
Always
Yes
It's amazing
So
My take on
The adult use
Of these things
Is very different
Than my take on
The use of them
For competition
Now
I've had people
Was it
It was Luke Thomas
That was saying
That they should just
Be able to take drugs
Right
Wasn't it
I believe it was
He's got a really
Good argument for it
That
They're doing things
And this is for fighters
They're doing things
They're just
They're getting away
With it
They're doing things
In some sort
Of a sneaky way
They're micro dosing
They're figuring out a way
And that
If you just
Like regulated
The levels
That they could compete at
And just let them
Do whatever they want
It'd probably be better
For everybody
In the early days
§38Transcript · 1:05:16–1:06:56
Of the sport
I'm sorry Luke
If I've distorted
Your argument
In the early days
Of the sport
It was wild west
And everybody
Was juiced to the gills
Like if you went
And in Japan
When they compete in Japan
It was actually in the contract
That they would actually
Not only would they
Not test
They would say
In all
Like my friend
Ensign Inue
He's a legend
In mixed martial arts
Like one of the early pioneers
And he said
When he was in pride
It was in all caps
We do not test
For steroids
It was in the contract
Wow
Yeah
Like
So
They would test you
And a lot
A lot of guys
Like no
They tested everybody
When we were over there
Yeah yeah yeah
They'd test you
He'd go
Go ahead
Pee in this cup
They'd say
Throw it over there
Get out there
Get juiced up
Like a friend of mine
Went to compete over there
They told him
To get on steroids
This was one of the
Japanese fight organizations
They told him
We want you to gain weight
We want you to be bigger
Stronger
Better for TV
Yeah
Better for the show
Yeah
More money to be made
And you know
If you're on
A host of these
Performance enhancing drugs
You will have more endurance
You'll be able to recover faster
You'll be able to train harder
And you'll be able to endure
More punishment
When you're actually inside
The ring or the cage
So you think they should
No
I'm torn
Here's my real feeling
That this is
We're trying to stick our finger
In a well
Or in a dam rather
That has a bunch of holes
And the holes are going to
Increase
There's going to be
More and more holes
And then you're going to
Have genetic engineering
And I think we are
Maybe one
Two generations
Away from
CRISPR kids
Fighting in MMA
Kids with perfect genes
Kids that
Say if they engineer
Myostatin inhibitors
Into children
§39Transcript · 1:06:56–1:08:46
You know what
Myostatin inhibitors are
Myostatin inhibitors
Are
It happens accidentally
With animals sometimes
Sometimes with cows
But commonly with whippets
For some strange reason
When they breed whippets
Sometimes they have
This weird error
In their genes
And they develop
They have myostatin inhibitors
In their genes
And their
Myostatin inhibitors
Apparently
What it does
Is it stops your body's
Like regulation
Of how much muscle
You can grow
So you have whippets
That don't even look
Like real animals
If you see them
You'll think they're photoshopped
You see them
That's a whippet
That's a myostatin inhibitor
Whippet
Now a normal whippet
Is the one on the right
Whoa
Yeah
So they grow
Massive
Massive muscles
And they literally
Look like
Like a hulk dog
Like someone gave a dog
Some kind of crazy drug
Oh my god
And then there's the cow
Over there too
Yeah that's a cow
That also has
Myostatin inhibitors
Yeah
So you have a cow
That looks like Ronnie Coleman
Or Dorian Yates
In his prime
You know like
We're just insanely huge
Wow
Now it happens
Occasionally in children
And there have been children
That have been born
With this aberration
And they're massive
Kids
That are just
Wow
I had never seen this
Yeah
That one might not be
Right
That might be
There was one kid
There was one sad one
Where this
That kid
That's steroids
The father was giving
The kid steroids
At a very early age
But there's
If you google
Myostatin inhibitor
Did you
Like I think
The one in the middle
That might be legit
Yeah that looks
Actually it's like
It looks like CGI
Alright I don't know
But anyway
There have been
Cases of kids
That have this
Genetic aberration
And they're just
Freakly muscled
As children
§40Transcript · 1:08:46–1:10:34
And you think
They're going to start
Trying to do that
Yes
I think they're definitely
Going to do it
I think they're probably
Doing it already in China
Yeah look at that kid
Okay that's it
Yeah for sure
Look at that kid
I mean that is
Fucking insane
That kid's jacked
That kid's getting
All the second graders
Yeah I mean he's got the face
Yeah exactly
Six year old
And then the arms
Of a fighter
Yeah so it's some
Weird aberration
Now with CRISPR
You know obviously
I'm not a scientist
So I'm going to butcher this
But they're able to
There's going to be
Good things that they can do
Where they can remove genes
That can cause leukemia
They can remove genes
That can cause Alzheimer's
But they're also going to be able
To alter people
And it's just a matter of time
I think right now
We're on the third iteration
Of CRISPR
I believe
Where they keep improving
The method
Now as they continue
To improve this method
There's going to be innovation
With everything
Nothing ever stops
And it's going to be worldwide
They're not
Once this technology
Is reaching China
And Russia
And wherever
Who's to stop people
From making people
With this
Right it's so scary
Well they've already
Used it on
CRISPR used
On
Adults
Currently
They've done it
They've done it
With people
And they actually
Did it with
I think there was
Something they did
In China
I believe it was
Where it improved
Their cognitive function
They were trying
To engineer
Something
It might have been
Something against HIV
A gene
To stop them
From potentially
Getting HIV
And it actually
Wound up improving
Their cognitive function
This is going to be
Weird shit
They're dealing with people
You're going to have
Steroids are going to be
A joke
Yeah like a walk in the park
Compared to the rest
And cloning too
I did a story about cloning once
And yeah
§41Transcript · 1:10:34–1:12:19
How in Argentina actually
Which is sort of
The center of polo horses
And the polo
The sport
Polo
And they're
All the majority
Of the horses
And the best teams
Are all cloned
And it's all actually
Being done by
An American company
Owned company
By this American guy
Who has diabetes
And who's
I believe somebody
In his family
Died from diabetes
His grandmother perhaps
And he's trying
To figure out a way
That he can clone
Parts of his body
And make them healthier
And really fascinating stuff
Yeah
Jesus
Yeah but whole horses
Whole teams
Of polo teams
Being run
And just cloned
From the same horse
Which was this champion horse
How many times
Can you make a copy
Of a copy
Until it's like
A shitty VHS tape
Apparently
Do you know
What's so interesting
I had no idea
Is that
You think of a clone
You think of something
That looks exactly
Like the other
Apparently the part
That is more visible
Which is the outward skin
And the horses
The hair
Actually the hair
The color of your hair
Has something to do
With the temperature
Of you
When you're in
The body
Before you were born
And so
The horses that were cloned
Actually the hair
Were different colors
But in the physical abilities
And health wise
The way your body operates
That's what's cloned
Right
So if somebody wanted
To make a perfect team
Of bodybuilders
They would just clone
Ronnie Coleman
And just make a bunch
Of Ronnie Coleman's
And the rest
Would look similar to him
But they're not identical
Wow
But physically they'd have
And also apparently
They were saying
That the personality
Of these cloned horses
Were very similar
To the original horse
In terms of being fighters
And you know
Not giving up
And all that
Oh that's what's crazy
Yeah it's insane
And that they
This is even crazier
How they
§42Transcript · 1:12:19–1:13:58
They believed
The owners of these horses
That they actually came
Equipped with some knowledge
That you can only
That horses aren't equipped with
Like the knowledge
Of how grass feels
Or there was something
About the game of polo
That you have to learn
And practice
And some of these horses
Were born with some
Of these characteristics
Wow
I know
It was insane
Do you have children?
I have a son
Yeah
Ten year old
One of the things
That I noticed
With one of my daughters
In particular
I have an obsessive personality
Like if I'm trying
To do something
I just can't stop
Thinking about it
I want to get better at it
And I've had that
Since I was a boy
My daughter has that
But she doesn't have
All the fucked up parts
About me
That I had
Like I had it
Because I wasn't getting
Any attention
When I was young
And I wanted to be great
So that people
Would pay attention to me
She just has it
So but she gets
Tons of attention
So she's like
Happy and confident
But she also
She's like a freak
Like she like
Concentrates on things
She gets really good at stuff
But it's very bizarre
My wife and I
Were looking at her
She's like
She's like a weird
12 year old
Girl version of me
How old is she?
She's 12
So it's this very strange
Thing that I'm like
This passed down
Clearly
Yeah
Because it's unusual
The way she is
I'm like
This is
It's very strange
Like to see this
In a young girl
I share
I share
My son definitely
Shares some things
With me
Like we both get
So excited
When we go into a plane
Every time
Even though I fly
Constantly
I still am the kind
Of person that
I walk into a plane
I step foot on a plane
And I get excited
About everything
The food
Everything
Like seriously
He does too?
And he is like that too
Actually it's before
§43Transcript · 1:13:58–1:15:38
We're on the airport
And we look at each other
And it's like
Yes
We're doing this
Yes
Do you think
That's
Well he's
He must have
Learned some of that
From you
Know
Do you think
He learned it
Or do you think
It's genetic
I think it's partly
Genetic
I think we have
I love to say
That I have exploration
In my blood
Because I'm Portuguese
And we come from
A long line of explorers
On the world
On the world
In history
And he has it too
But I don't know
I think partly
Yeah
He just shares with me
The joy of traveling
And the exploration
And the weird of the places
Like I took him to Morocco
A couple of years ago
And because it was so unlike
Anything he had seen
He was in heaven
He wanted to dress
With the same
The jellabas
As they call them
The men wear jellabas
These long dresses
He wanted to wear the jellabas
He wanted to do everything
Like put the
What do you call
The thing
The scarf on your head
Like the Tuaregs there
Because we went camping
In the Sahara desert
And yeah
He really embraces all of it
It's really
So maybe he's got
Your travel lust
Yeah
For sure
And the weirder it is
The more he likes it
That makes sense
Because it's like
Think of the things
That people are inherently afraid of
Like
I think it was
Rupert Sheldrake
Was talking about this
That children
Even children that grow up
In New York City
They're not worried about
Car accidents
Or child molesters
They're worried about monsters
They're worried about monsters
In the room
They're worried about monsters
In the dark
And that they believe
Stems from some sort of
A genetic memory of cats
Big cats
Hunting us
When we used to be
Primates living in trees
And that the thing
That every chimp
And every monkey
Is afraid of
Is a fucking cat
Oh wow
Like if you live in the jungle
Which we all came from Africa
§44Transcript · 1:15:38–1:17:26
As human beings
That is
What was killing us
And eating us
I had no idea
Yeah
So the thing
That everyone's afraid of
Is something with big fangs
It's in the dark
That's cats
I'm going to tell you a story
That happened to me
I actually told your team
Before coming in
I was
I am terrified
So I meet with cartel members
I meet with
These people all around the world
And usually
I'm not
Tend to be scared
But there was
I'm terrified of big animals
And especially big cats
I was in the Amazon once
I was doing a story
About biopiracy there
And again
I was with my husband Aaron
And we went deep
Into the Amazon
Like really deep
To camp with these
Two Brazilian scientists
And we were looking
For poisonous snakes
And poisonous spiders
And the most poisonous
Creatures in the Amazon
We went out at night
In the middle of the night
With them
With just flashlights
And our snake boots
And initially
I was kind of scared
And you know
They would pick up
These really dangerous
Fer de lance
And the most dangerous snakes
And all that
And I went back to camp
After this night
Thinking I am
The bravest person
In the universe
I can do this as well
If not even better
Than men can
I came back
And I wasn't afraid
And I did this
It's something that terrified me
You know
Poisonous snakes
But I did it
And I'm so strong
And I'm so powerful
I'm so brave
I'm the queen of the Amazon
And then I went to bed
That night
In these hammocks
That we hung on trees
Out completely in the open
And I had a hammock
On the far end
Because I was a woman
And the scientist stayed
And my husband next to me
But still
I was more exposed than them
And in the middle of the night
In the Amazon
Where it actually gets really cold
I didn't know that
But I woke up
Kind of cold
And suddenly I felt it
And there was a breath
Right next to me
A warm
Smelly
Breath
Right next to my face
And I'm out in the open
In this hammock
§45Transcript · 1:17:26–1:18:59
And I was
Absolutely sure
Of course
I know it's a jaguar
The scientist
Had just told us
That he's not scared
Of anything
Except for jaguars
Because he knows
That they're in this area
And they've killed little kids
Oh Jesus Christ
So this is happening
To me in the middle of the night
And I had this reaction
That I didn't think
Was possible
You know when
When you have nightmares
When you have nightmares
When you were a kid
And something horrifying happens
And then you want to talk
And scream and ask for help
But you can't
You're frozen
Paralysis
That actually happened to me
Where I was suddenly
I felt it here
I knew I needed to ask for help
But I completely froze
And I couldn't get any words
To come out
But apparently
My teeth were shattering
So damn loud
That my husband
Next to me woke up
And said
Hey are you okay
And I was able to say no
And then he came up
With this flashlight
And looked all around
And didn't see anything
And thought
Obviously I was
Probably dreaming
This wasn't true
Told me it's nothing
I'm sure you just
Imagine this
This didn't happen
The next morning
Wake up
I didn't sleep at all
Obviously
But my backpack
Was full of hair
And I was so ready
To like turn to them
And tell them
Okay see you guys
See
You think I'm just like afraid
And I imagine this stuff
But this stuff actually happened
And here's the hair
And then the scientist
Like points out
This guy Paulo
Who's great
Paulo says
Hey Mariana
Look there
There's a dog
And there's this little dog
That had spent the whole night
Sitting on my little
Backpack
So it wasn't a jaguar
It was a dog
It was a dog
But I'm terrified
Terrified
I mean especially
Since I was terrified
Of wild cats
A guy in Texas
Got killed by a mountain lion
Yesterday
No way
Yeah
Yeah it was in the news
This morning
How did
What happened
Got jacked
§46Transcript · 1:18:59–1:20:44
That's just what happens
You know
They
And it was really funny
They were like
It's so
There's people
That were poo-pooing it
Because there was
A mountain lion sighting
In the area
And some people think
That he was killed
By the mountain lion
But
Some people are
Saying well
We're not sure
It's exceedingly rare
That people get killed
By mountain lions
Why there's only been
30 recorded cases
Of people being killed
By mountain lions
In Texas
Like bitch
That's 30
It was 30 werewolves
Right
It was 30 people
That have been killed
By werewolves
Would you be skeptical
If you found a man
Torn apart
Wouldn't you just assume
You got killed by a werewolf
Oh we got 31 now
Like cats kill people
If they know for sure
They can get away with it
And they're hungry
Especially if they're old
They kill people all the time
It says there's no evidence
Of a predatory attack
By a mountain lion
Or maybe even
Any other animal
Yeah but there's other
Here I'll send you
Another article
That says there is evidence
Alright I'm looking
From a couple hours ago
Right now
Yeah there's several
Didn't ABC News
Go to the ABC News
Oh did they change it
They changed their position
It was conflicted
On whether mountain lion
Is responsible for man's death
Three hours ago
And so how did he die
I mean how did they find his body
Was it mauled or not
No we're not going to know
Unless we get real
Real data from it
Right
But uh
Yeah it happens
And I'm terrified
There's a crazy video
Of a guy
Walking down
This road
And the cat
Comes rushing at him
It's insane
Throwing her paws
It's insane
Oh my god
Oh my god
He's backing up screaming
And how well did he do
I mean
He did amazing
Right
He kept his cool
He kept filming
Amazing
He's amazing
But I didn't know
I kind of knew
How fast they were
But I didn't know
§47Transcript · 1:20:44–1:22:45
It would be that terrifying
Like the movement
That the cat was making
Like waving its arms out wide
Like coming at him
Like a demon
I know
Like a demon
Like a demon
Totally
And they're just wandering around
People like amazing
Oh my god
In my old neighborhood
I heard that one
That was like protecting it
Yes
Well he saw the babies first
And then he started walking towards it
And then it started walking towards him
And then he started backing up
And it chased him
My friend in my old neighborhood
Had stopped outside of her house
And she saw a mountain lion
And started filming it
And while she was filming the mountain lion
A second one ran right by
Look at this
Oh my god
Yeah it was a big ass cat
Where was it?
That's in fucking Calabasas
In the 40s
That's in
Yeah
That's a suburb of L.A.
Big
Two cats
Two big ass predatory cats
Just running around
There's a lot of them in L.A.
Oh yeah
Well there's some of them
That have been collared
And there's some of them that haven't
And there's a lot of people
That think it's wonderful
That they're around
Yeah
And I'm like okay
Look I'm glad they're real
I love the fact that a mountain lion
Is a real animal
But they shouldn't be in fucking Calabasas
Jesus Christ you hippies
Right
Like kill that thing
Net it
Do whatever you gotta do
Get it the fuck out of there
Like
There's kids there
A bunch of dog eaters
And kid eaters
Listen
It will definitely eat a baby
100%
You got your little baby
Wandering around the middle of the night
It shouldn't be
But if it was
And that cat came along
That baby's dead
Yeah
It's gonna eat it
They'll eat everything
They eat dogs
They eat cats
They eat everything they can
They did a study in San Francisco
Where they
You know
Whenever they have
What's called a depredation permit
When they find that
A cat's been killing
A bunch of animals
They'll issue a permit
Where you can kill it
When they kill these cats
The most shocking thing
Was 50% of their diet
Was pets
Whoa
Yeah
50%
Yeah
50% with dogs and cats
Yeah
§48Transcript · 1:22:45–1:24:22
Coyotes
Do you know coyotes
Also in LA
Are responsible for a lot of
Little pet dogs
And cats
Killed my daughter's dog
Really
Killed all my chickens
Right
Yeah
Coyotes are gross
Yeah
Mountain lion killed my dog
In Colorado
I lived in Colorado
One of my dogs
Got killed by a mountain lion
They're no joke
No they're not
They're fucking
Sketchy animals
And they live around people
For that very reason
And look
No man
You're in their territory
Right
Like okay
What are you
A mountain lion?
No
It's a person's house
You fuck
Like it's not theirs
Once you put a house there
It's yours
Right
Can I pivot to bears
Right now
Yes
You had a guest
Actually a few times already
Steve Vanilla
Yes
And you know that the guy
That he tells a story
About when they were
Attacked by bears
The guy that he tells
Always that on his team
Actually rode the back
Of the bear
Yeah
Because the bear
He was our assistant
Dirt myth
Yeah
Dirt myth
Yeah
He's in our team
He filmed the cocaine
He filmed all our
Oh he's great
He's incredible
Wow
Yeah he was the guy
Who was literally
As the bear
Charged them
Found himself somehow
On the back of the bear
As it's running down the hill
That's right
Yeah
For like several yards
Garrett was on the back
Of a fucking massive bear
You hear him telling the story
Which was when we hired him
I was like okay
Tell the bear story
It's insane
It's a crazy story
There's many of my friends
Were there
My friend Remy was there
My friend Giannis was there
I know a lot of the guys
In that crew
And they all tell it
The same way
That everyone was just like
You go to a place
That you didn't know
Your brain
Like a room in your brain
You didn't know you have
Like oh look at that
You've never been in here before
§49Transcript · 1:24:22–1:26:13
This is what happens
When you're about to die
This is what happens
When a giant super animal
Is about to eat you
Right
Oh my god
That scares me
And those bears
Are the biggest bears
In the world
Yeah I know
That area of a Fognak island
That's like
Those are like
The Kodiak island bears
That's Alaska
Yeah
And then you keep thinking
About the revenant
In the scene
Oh
When are the capitals
Yeah
They're terrifying
But again
I love that they're real
I love
Like I'm not a person
That thinks you should
Go and kill all
The predators
That kill people
I love the fact
That we have this rich
Sort of
Just tapestry of life
There's so many different things
And I love the fact
That there's so many
Different things
But they shouldn't be
In Calabasas
You know
And they want to like
Make wildlife corridors
Over the 101
Because these cats
Keep getting hit by cars
Like
Hey guys
Maybe we just concentrate
On keeping them healthy
Where people aren't
Like it's not
I don't think we should encourage
You know
There's all this weirdness
That comes in California
When it comes to these animals
Like
They kill
Just as many of them
As they used to
But
They only kill them
By hiring people
To kill them
They don't allow hunting anymore
Whereas in other places
That they have problems
With mountain lions
Hunting is still legal
Like Colorado
Like my friend Johnny
He is a hunting guide
In Colorado
And he gets hired
To hunt mountain lions
Because these mountain lions
Will take out calves
And cattle
And they
They'll attack livestock
And once they
Start going into
So they have
The wildlife
Management companies
They have
These sort of
Very calculated processes
Where they determine
How many tags
Can be issued
And how many mountain lions
Can be sustained
In an area
Without them encroaching
On
§50Transcript · 1:26:13–1:28:03
You know
Livestock
And things along those lines
And then you get to this
Like animal rights argument
Where people are like
Hey
They have a right too
You know
They should
We're in their land
You know
You shouldn't do anything
You should leave them alone
And this is sort of
What they've decided to do
In California
In California
They
The ultimate goal
California is weird
In that it's not
Department of Fish and Game
It's Department of Fish and Wildlife
And so
That's on purpose
Because they don't want
To think of these things
As a resource
That people hunt
They want to think of them
As wild animals
That they protect
And so
The Department of Fish and Wildlife
Is
In many ways
Populated by people
Who are animal rights activists
Versus
People who are
Hunters and fishermen
And conservationists
And people who understand
This sort of
Pragmatic approach
To managing wildlife
It's a real complex issue
And it's
They've decided
To just let these animals
Handle themselves
And I talked to one person
Who's worked with
The Department of Fish and Wildlife
Who said
Their ultimate goal
Is to have no hunting
At all
In California
They would like the animals
To manage themselves
Right
But when that happens
Then the animals
Kill dogs
And wildlife
And then you kill those animals
So they don't manage themselves
So you're paying people
To kill the animals
Yeah
But it's like
It's sneaky
Because it's like
You look like
You care more about the animals
Because like
We don't allow
Hunting mountain lions
Here in California
Yeah but you still
Kill just as many
You have like
Hired killers
Who go and track them down
And kill them
Like it's
It's very weird
And people who live on ranches
They have a
Completely different attitude
Because they see these things
Dragging deers across the road
Or attacking calves
And it's like
You live around monsters
Yeah
They're on the front lines
Yeah
§51Transcript · 1:28:03–1:29:48
You're dealing with monsters
And again
I love those monsters
I'm glad they're real
Right
I've seen mountain lions
Twice in my life
And it's a pretty cool thing
To see them
It's wild
It's like
You're seeing this thing
That somehow or another
Manages to exist
Around people
And it hustles
And it makes its way
But
Yeah
One of the episodes
We did was actually
About tigers
And tiger trafficking
Wildlife trafficking
Was that about people
That own tigers
Both
So we looked at Asia
Where they're killing
You know
Chopping up
And using tigers
To sell for tiger wine
Which is a luxury good
In Asia
A wine?
Yes
It's
They seep the tiger bones
The older the tiger
And the more they're wild
So instead of being farmed
Because they're also being
Tigers being farmed in Asia
But the wilder
If they can catch them
From the wild
It's even better
And they seep them
In these vats
Of rice wine
And they stay
For years and years
And then they sell this
For incredibly
Really expensive
Wait how do they do it?
Bottles of wine
They seep the tiger
So they kill the tiger
They kill the tiger
And then they let the body rot
In a vat of wine
In a vat of rice wine
And then
You might actually
Be able to find a photo
Of one of these things
That sounds disgusting
And then they stay there
For years
And then eventually
They make little
Or big bottles
Of this stuff
And sell them
For a ton of money
How much does tiger wine
Go for?
They can go for
Anywhere from like
$300, $400
For a bottle
To thousands and thousands
And thousands of dollars
Have you tried tiger wine?
No I did not
Did you feel tempted?
Yeah so this is not
The bones?
There's one that you can see
The whole tiger
Is that the bones?
Yeah those are the bones
In our film
You can actually see the vat
Do they just use the bones?
Or do they use the tissue as well?
The pelts
They usually take it out
§52Transcript · 1:29:48–1:31:34
Because they are also
Sell the pelts
Oh this is crazy
Yeah it's very good
Tiger bone trade
Shocking reason why people
Oh you see
Yeah that's a good one
The first one
If you press that one
That picture
You see that?
Oh what?
Yeah
Oh my god
So they suspend this tiger carcass
Inside this enormous vat of wine
Let me see that person's face again
Through the whole thing
Look at the dude
Is that a woman?
I don't know
He's got a mullet
I don't know
It's non-binary
Don't be rude
I thought it was a thumbs up
That could be anything
You get out of here
We're doing good things
Right
So we went
Look at that carcass
That's crazy
So we were trying to figure out
Who were the people involved in this
You know sort of tiger cartel land
Because that's you
That's for you guys
That's National Geographic
That photograph
Yeah
So was this something
That you actually physically saw yourself?
We didn't see that vat
But we saw
Look at that picture
Other things
Look at that picture
That picture is wild
Wild
Do they take the meat off of that thing
Before they put it in that
Or does the meat just rot off?
I'm actually not sure
I know they definitely take the pelts
Because they can make a lot of money out of the pelts
Go back to the photo Jamie
Scroll down so I can see
That is wild
Yeah
That picture is so disturbing
It's just so weird
Right
It's like it's got no tissue on it
But it's like a dinosaur in the zoo
Where it's like sort of suspended
In a walking position
It's so strange
And so
So much money to be made by these tigers
But then we came to the US
And we looked at
A crazy shocking number
Which is that there are more tigers
In captivity in the US
Than there are in the wild
In the entire world
There's more tigers in Texas
Than there are in all the wild of the world
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah
Yeah
I had a whole bit about it
In my 2016 Netflix special
Really?
You did?
Yeah
About how crazy Texas is
Yeah
Yeah
It's
Yeah
Yeah
There's
I think there's somewhere around
5,000 tigers
Just in Texas
Yeah
It's insane
§53Transcript · 1:31:34–1:33:25
And I like that
We so tend to look at Asia
And criticize
These people are being crazy
And I can't believe
What they do to these animals
And yet
The commodification of tigers
Is happening right here
Because it's all
They're making money out of
You know
Roadside zoos
And taking selfies
With the tigers
Or just rich assholes
Who have a bunch of tigers
Yeah
Was Mike Tyson
Had a tiger
And it was really funny
He was telling me
On the podcast
That I think he's buying horses
And someone said to him
You get a tiger
What's up?
We got a list up here
They had used tiger parts
There's a lot of various tiger parts
They're used for various
Yeah
Medicine things
How much of it has to do
With erectile dysfunction?
It's obviously been
Scientifically disproven
Yeah
Yeah
Exactly
The fat
Prescribed for dog bites
Feces
A cure for boils
Hemorrhoids
And alcoholism
Oh
Eyeballs
Treatment for malaria
And epilepsy
Nervousness
Or fevers in children
Convulsions and cataracts
Claws
A sedative
For sleeplessness
Wait the brain
Can you go up again?
The brain is the best
A treatment for laziness
And pimples
Now
What is it about
Certain countries
Because I don't want to say Asia
But it's in Asia
Where they
They like these weird
Exotic things
That are proven
To not be
Functional
Like
Like rhino horn
Yeah
Rhino horn
Is a thing that they love
In certain circles
In China
Right?
That's where the big trade
Like
And it's
The way it was described to me
By a friend who's Chinese
Was that
It's more of
That it is
Very difficult to get
And like
So you have some people
Over your house
And you're like
Would you like some rhino horn?
And like
Oh shit
This dude's balling
He brought out
The rhino horn tea
And you all sit around
§54Transcript · 1:33:25–1:34:51
With pinkies up
And drink your wine
But not that you really think
That
I mean they know about Viagra
It doesn't
It's not
They don't think
That this is really
I think they do
I do think
Because they're paying
So much money
I do think
That they believe
In traditional Chinese medicine
There's a belief
That a lot of these things
Have been scientifically disproven
But they still believe it
I do think
Because
Who is going to pay
You know
Ten
Twenty thousand dollars
For a bottle
Of tiger wine
If they don't think
That
It's not just
For the taste
I think
The way my friend
Was describing it
That the culture
Values things
That are difficult
To get
That are exclusive
Yeah
The more expensive it is
The more difficult
It is to get
That is for sure
But I think
There's an enormous
The traditional medicine
Part of it
Right
Because there's
A big part of it
It's probably difficult
For us
To understand
This long history
Of the use
That's been
Like it's
Been sort of celebrated
Use of rhino horn
And tiger parts
And shit
Yeah
I mean
It's
Yeah
Like we don't have
A frame of reference
Right
I mean
We could
If we
You know
Don't want to be in popular
But if we looked at religion
Right here
They poured you a shot
Of the rhino horn
Would you
Would you take a little
Just see what's up
Or a tiger wine
I should have tried
That tiger wine
We actually
We got our hands
In a tiger
A bottle of tiger wine
For the show
And we were able to
Gain it
Did anybody try it
No we didn't
I opened it up
And I smelled it
And it's just a powerful
Alcohol smell
Not particularly good
Not something
§55Transcript · 1:34:51–1:36:22
Nothing that I would
Want to try
Like a moonshine
Type smell
Yeah
But kind of bitter
Like not
That's the tiger
I would drink moonshine
Any day
God it's so strange
What people
Are willing to do
To get something
That's not even
That
It's not enjoyable
Like it's not like
You eat it
And you're like
Oh my god
This is the most
Amazing thing ever
Did you see
Sea of Shadows
The documentary
About the tatuaba fish
No
What is it
About the what
Tatuaba fish
Is this fish
That exists only
In the Gulf of Mexico
Apparently
And it's highly prized
The bladder
Of the tatuaba fish
Is highly prized
In Asia and China
As well
For its medicinal value
Which has been
Disproving too
But in order
To get the tatuaba fish
You have
Yeah this is it
Wow pretty fish
And they're
So that's the vaquita
In order to get
The tatuaba fish
They're killing the vaquitas
When there's only
A couple dozen left
Or something
What
Yeah they look like dolphins
No that's the tatuaba
Okay
Sorry
The other one is the vaquita
That has a round nose
Over there
That's the vaquita
Why do they kill the vaquita
Because they get caught
In the nets
But it's the only place
In the world
Where these vaquitas
And there's only like
20 left
Or something like that
Really
Just a few dozen left
In the world
And they're these
Beautiful creatures
So the film
Is actually really well done
They
It's also a National Geographic film
But they go
And explore
The whole market
For this
And how cartels
Are involved
Wow what a pretty animal
It's beautiful
It's like a dolphin fish
Oh it has a blowhole
It's so pretty
Wait a minute
So is it a dolphin?
Is it a mammal?
This is called the vaquita
Yeah I believe it's a mammal
§56Transcript · 1:36:22–1:38:14
It's a porpoise
Oh wow
It's just a weird porpoise
So cool right?
Yeah very
Yeah
Very strange
It's sad that so many of these
Are being destroyed
Just because of
And this is
Only 30 remain in the wild
30 I see
Yeah
And so this is
Because of
This one fish
And what is so great
About this one fish
Again it's the belief
That it has some sort
Of medicinal value
The bladder
Of the tatawaba fish
Yeah
You know
So in BC
You're not allowed to
If you hunt bear
Like they hunt
Like black bear
Is a
It actually tastes good
Like it's a
Commonly hunted
Meat
In terms of
Like the
Pioneers
Used to hunt deer
And like even bison
They would just cut
The tongues out
And use the hide
And they would hunt
Black bear for the meat
Weird
Like black
I've had black bear
It actually tastes good
Does it?
Seems like it shouldn't
But it tastes good
But the point is that
Because of
Chinese medicine
In Chinese medicine
Bear gallbladder
Is very valuable
That's right
So people were shooting bears
Just for the gallbladder
So in BC
If you hunt bear
Legally
You're not allowed
To gut them
Because they want
To make sure
That you're not doing it
Just for the gallbladder
So in some sort
Of a weird
Twisted logic
You leave the gallbladder
There to rot
Because you can't
Be in possession
Of a bear gallbladder
So it's really
Anti-conservationist
Because like
First of all
I don't think
There really is
A medicinal purpose
For the bear gallbladder
But in certain animals
Like with buffalo
When the Native American
Like particularly
The Comanche
Would eat the buffalo
They would take
The gallbladder
And squirt the bile
Over the liver
And they would eat
Raw liver
And use the bile
§57Transcript · 1:38:14–1:39:54
As seasoning
Because it's kind of salty
I guess
I've never tried it this way
But so they had
A use for it
But if you ever did that
With bear
Like bears are predators
Like you can't eat them raw
Like you would
You would get
Really fucked up
You'd get
Trichinosis
And all sorts of parasites
But I don't know
What they're doing
With the gallbladder
They think
But it's so common
That they actually
Had to pass a law
To say that you can't
Gut the bears
So when you shoot a bear
You have to leave
All that stuff
You can't be in possession
Of it
So like if you shot a bear
And you
You know
Took the bear
And you know
Butchered it
And all that stuff
You have to leave
The guts
Because they're trying
To prevent it
From being sold
To the black market
Yeah
Yeah because people
Will hunt them
Just for the gallbladder
And we'll pay a lot
Of money for that
And particularly
B.C.
Like Vancouver
Has a large Asian population
And some of these people
Have this belief
That there's something
In the gallbladder
Right
The sea bladder
From the fish
It says in this article
That many of the Chinese
Store them as they would
Store gold
They cook them in soup
It's good for their skin
Instead of buying a Ferrari
They buy a bladder or two
They sell for upwards
Of a hundred thousand dollars
A piece
For one
That's insane
Yeah
That's insane
For a fish bladder
Wow
It's not
It's like the bladder
That allows them
To stay buoyant
It's so
Oh so it's an air bladder
Yeah it's a swim bladder
It's weird
It's weird
Things
Like shark's fin soup
Have you ever had
Shark's fin soup
No
I had it once
Long time ago
Like before
I ever heard
That it was a bad thing
Like that they were
Killing sharks for it
I think
Like in the
§58Transcript · 1:39:54–1:41:49
Maybe the early 90s
Or something like that
I don't even remember
Where I was
But I remember
Eating it going
It's okay
You had it at a Chinese restaurant
I think I might have had it
When I was young too
Yeah
Like I think it was okay
To have back then
And then eventually
I watched some documentary
Where I saw that
They catch these sharks
And just hack their fins off
And throw them back in the water
I'm like whoa
And you stopped eating it
Yeah well
I only ate it once
I don't even remember
I'm pretty sure I ate it
But it might have been bullshit
You know what I mean
Like sometimes you go to a Chinese restaurant
And like my friend Ed told me that
At some Chinese restaurants
They would say it was scallops
But it was really skate wing
So they would take like
And they would punch holes
In like a stingray wing
And sell that as scallops
Like I don't know
But whatever
That was
That's a thing
Where
For whatever reason
It's prized
But it's not that good
Like there's weird things
Like lobster
Like if lobster
Somehow or another
Was like some
Thing where
You really shouldn't eat it
Because it's terrible
For the environment
It's destroying lives
And there's only
Four lobsters left
And look
I got lobster for dinner
It was like
And he sat around
And ate it
And you know
Put fucking tinfoil
Over the window
So nobody could see in
Then it would make
Kind of sense
Like god damn
Lobster is delicious
Lobster with melted butter
Is pretty tough
Pretty tough to beat
It's pretty good
It makes
At least a little bit of sense
But
From what I understand
Like these things
Whether it's a tiger wine
Or you know
Rhino dick
Or whatever you're eating
It's not good stuff
There's a dish in Portugal
That I love
And that has been banned
That I used to eat as a kid
It's the baby eels
Have you ever tried it?
No
It's the best
So you know
It's been banned?
It's been banned
Meanwhile you can get heroin there
Without going to prison
But I used to eat it a lot
And yeah
We call them angulas in Portugal
It's also a dish
§59Transcript · 1:41:49–1:43:44
Apparently in Spain
But they make it better in Portugal
And it's full of
Olive oil and garlic
Which is all you need
To make something taste really good
And it's these tiny little worms
Essentially
They're mini baby eels
And I guess it's bad
For the environment
So they stopped eating
You stopped
But that's the kind of thing
That I understand again
Like the lobster filled with butter
Where you had to understand
Why you'd pay the amounts of money
Because it is really good
Yeah
Things that are delicious
Make sense
Yeah
But things that are exclusive
Like fish bladder
Or tiger soaked in
For years and years
But it's weird
Stuff that's exclusive is weird
You know
It's like
There's a desire
To be one of the few people
That can eat this thing
Yeah
It's just
It appeals to a weird aspect
Of human nature
Yeah
I mean
You can play that to cars as well
And it's all the stuff
That I don't
Well
In doing this show
Your show is all about
Trafficking things
Was
What was the most disturbing
Was there a most disturbing
Episode for you
There were a bunch of situations
In each episode
I think we did one
Actually
I've been
You know
I've covered
The gun
Sort of trade
And illegal guns
Here in America
But I had never
But
And I've always wanted
To do a show about
Where I explore
The pipeline of guns
Going down south
From the west
To Mexico
And how it's
Contributing to the violence there
And we were given
Incredible access
The films
Essentially started
With a car
Of a woman
Being loaded
With AK-47s
And AR-15s
In LA
Just a few minutes
From my house
Right next to the
710 freeway
On the middle
Of a weekday night
It's insane
And we can see
Them packing the guns
We interview them
And these are
LA people
People who live in LA
And who work
Essentially for the cartel
And we saw them
Packing this car
§60Transcript · 1:43:44–1:45:17
And then we saw
That night
We followed that car
Across the border
Into Mexico
Nobody stopped them
I mean there isn't
Even any border patrol
When you're going south
Only when you come north
And then we saw
The guns being sold
To the middleman
And then eventually
Heading to Sinaloa
And we were in Sinaloa
I don't know if you read
In the news last year
There was
A
When
Ophidio Guzman
Who's the son of El Chapo
Remember he was
Oh yeah we saw that
And then
They basically
Took hostage
Of the whole city
There was a siege
Of the city of Culiacan
The capital of Sinaloa
And the cartels
Wouldn't let it go
And were threatening
The whole city
With violence
If the authorities
Wouldn't release
El Chapo San
And we were actually
In Sinaloa reporting
When this happened
And all around
There were again
American guns
There was AK-47s
There were even
50 cal's
There were trucks
With 50 calibers
Coming from the US
And
And then yeah
And we filmed with
Essentially we spent time
With three sicarios
Three gunmen
From the Sinaloa cartel
All of them had
And owned
American guns
And
Since then
Two of them
Have been killed
So we spent time
With three
And it's been only a year
And two of them
Have been killed
And they were
20 something year olds
And at the end
Of the film
And I think
You know
We thought
Okay we've
We've gotten
To the terminus
Of what they call
The Iron River
Which is the pipeline
Of guns coming
From the US
To Mexico
Called the Iron River
They do
They even have
A saying for it
Which is
Mexico
The US supplies
The guns
Mexico supplies
The corpses
That's what
We heard
Like one of the guys
§61Transcript · 1:45:17–1:46:44
That we interviewed
Said
And the US
Has become
The supermarket
Of guns
For Mexico
And for a lot
Of Latin America
You know
I've spent time
Reporting on the
Violence in Brazil
And you go to
The favelas
In Brazil
And you know
You look into
The guns
And where they
Came from
And it's
From the US
The majority
Of them
Did you ever
Look into
The fast and furious
Debacle
I did
During the Obama
Administration
Yeah it was a debacle
It was horrible
You know
Explain to people
What happened
It's been a long time
But I'm trying my best
What was happening
Is that the
The ATF
Which is the agency
Responsible for
Tobacco and Firearms
Was allowing
Had an operation
Happening
Where they knew
Guns were being sold
And smuggled
To Mexico
And they were
Allowing this to happen
Because they were
Trying to figure out
And gain information
From this
And what happened
Is that one of those
Guns eventually
Was used to kill
A border patrol agent
I believe
I think it was an ATF agent
Or it was an ATF
I'm sorry
So
I think
It was used to kill
An ATF agent
Or maybe
It might have been border
I can't remember
But either way
It was horrible
Yeah they were heavily
Criticized for this
For sure
They literally supplied
Guns to the cartel
Yeah they were allowing
Them to go to the hands
Of the cartel
Because they say
They were trying to get
Information
You know
From where those guns
Were going
Which is essentially
What we filmed
We saw the whole process
Of where they arrive
How they're shipped
What they do
To avoid border
How do they get the guns
It's insane
So I
§62Transcript · 1:46:44–1:48:22
This blew my mind
I had no idea
So when they told me
Okay
We're going to get access
To this iron river
This operation happening
And it starts in California
I said
You're wrong
It can't start in California
Because we have
The most restrictive
Gun laws
It's not possible
It's probably
You're wrong
Not the most restrictive
Some of the most restrictive
In the country
You can get a handgun
In California
Good luck trying to get
One in New York
New York has the heart
Yeah
But some of the most restrictive
And especially compared to Texas
And Arizona
And I thought
You know
This is probably wrong
They're telling us
It's California
Because we get
A lot of times
They tell us
It's one place
Because they don't want
To spill the beans
Immediately
Before they trust us
And eventually
Eventually it was realized
That it was happening
In California
So we went to meet
With this guy
Who lives in LA
Just again
15 minutes from my house
And there he was
In this house
Packing the guns
And he had his cousins
Working with him
And helping him out
And he says
He's been doing this
It's been the family business
For years and years
He started working
For the family business
When he was 7 years old
Yeah
And helping with the gun trade
And the drug trade
He's also involved
In the drug trade
He was 7
He said
No how old was he
When you met him?
Now he's in his 30s
Oh Jesus Christ
Yeah
And he
And I talked
And I asked him
So where
You know
And this was
One of them
Was a semi-auto
AR-15
It had the scope
It was super
Professional looking
The other one
Was a bit little
Was an AK-47
And then he had
A couple of handguns
And I was asking
How did you get
Your hands in this?
And I
Having done reporting
On this
Definitely thought
§63Transcript · 1:48:22–1:49:51
It was from a gun show
Or you know
Getting people
To go to
Shops
And buy
Stores
And buy guns
Legally
And then selling
Them on the side
And he said
In his case
He gets most of his guns
From law enforcement
From LAPD
Or from military
Down in the
Military bases
In Southern California
Yeah
And that was
Really shocking
Wait a minute
So LAPD
Illegally sells
Guns
Or not
I'm not sure
It's not everyone
But
Someone
They have a connection
That's what he told us
He has a connection
So they get guns
Confiscate guns
That's right
And then illegally
Sell them
To this guy
Who brings them
Down to the cartel
So the AK-47
Holy shit
He had
I believe it was
The AK-47
He said
So this gun here
For example
This thing
Long to my home
My guy that works
With me
Or I'm friends with
The LAPD found it
Confiscated it
And then we have
A connection
And they sold it
Back to us
For a thousand dollars
Oh my god
Yeah
Yeah
Of course
This is really hard
To prove
And obviously
Right
He might have been
Bullshitting
Because he hates cops
He totally could be
Bullshitting
Yeah
But how does he
Get his hands
On these
You know
Guns
What are the other options
Like is it
Only one source
I mean
So this is a guy
That is done time
In prison
So he can't buy them
Right
You know
But I mean
Is this
Were there other sources
That were bringing
Guns down
Did you look at
Other cases
Of different individuals
§64Transcript · 1:49:51–1:51:10
No so we were
Following this one group
So this one
Iron River
Without giving away
Your source
How did you find out
About this
Through connections
That I have
In that world
And it's one of the
Sort of bosses
That we meet
Later on
When we arrive
In Sinaloa
That we actually
Interviewed him
In a strip club
And he's the one
He essentially told me
It was because of me
I gave you access
To this whole
Iron River
And you know
One of the biggest
Reasons why
Is because
Americans always
Point as us
Mexicans
As being responsible
For everything
And I wanted
To show you
Guys
Americans
How it's your
Guns that are
Responsible
For the violence
Here
Holy shit
Yeah
It was
Incredible
Now when an episode
Like that airs
Is that when it
Aired yet
No that's the
Last one
And it's a
Two hour
It became
There was so much
There happening
And because we
Were there during
The siege
And I mean
They were arming
Themselves for that
Case
For the
Ovidio Guzman
If that were to
Happen
We went and
Visited a bunker
Loaded with
Again AK-47s
AR-15s
The lot
Where they were
Arming themselves
For something
And then the event
Happened as we
Were reporting
So it's a
Two hour
And I'm
That's a really
Good one
I mean
I don't know
Right now
Because resources
Are so strapped
If there's
Anything that
Anybody can do
Any differently
Than what's being
Done currently
Like what
Budgets are
§65Transcript · 1:51:10–1:52:22
But I do know
That your
Piece on the
Oxycontin express
Had a giant
Impact
On
Legislation
They
Literally
People saw that
And then people
Saw the podcast
That we did
And were alerted
To what a
Gigantic issue
It is
And politicians
Started talking
About it
And constituents
Started talking
About it
And people
Like hey
What are you
Doing about this
We were called
By law enforcement
Around the country
And senators
In Florida
Trying to
You know
Sort of get
More knowledge
Of what we'd
Seen
What we'd
Witness
And if we
Could try
And help
In any way
In changing
The laws
There
And eventually
They did
I would think
That if I was
The cartel
And I relied
On this iron river
I would not want
Someone like you
Exposing it
Just so I could
Snub my nose
Up at the
Americans
Unless
They're so
Brazen
That they think
No matter what
Happens
There's always
Going to be
This pipeline
Of drugs
And guns
There is always
Going to be
Up and down
There is so much
Money to be made
And not just
In Mexico
But here in the
US
You know
With corruption
And people
Being involved
In this
There is
Not much
Encouragement
There for it
To stop
And I think
Part of it
You're right
It's impunity
I mean
This guy can do
Whatever he wants
You know
§66Transcript · 1:52:22–1:53:54
He has been doing
Whatever he wants
They basically
With that siege
They made
The Mexican government
They brought it
Down to its knees
And they said
If you don't
Release this guy
We are going
To kill
The families
Of the military
You know
They surrounded
The compound
Where the military
Families lived
And they said
If you don't
Release this guy
We are going
To kill everyone
Inside
And they would have
Yeah
That was a
Telling moment
When they released him
Like who is running
This show
Because it's not
The government
Yeah we spoke to
I've seen a little
State police woman
Actually who
Was in tears
Saying you know
I was there
I went out
I protected Mexicans
That day
My fellow Mexicans
And the moment
That she realized
That they were going
To give him up
She just broke down
In tears
And she said
All of this for what
You know
I put my life
On the line
Repeatedly for what
Yeah
Do you think
That these
Exposes
That you're doing
Currently
These episodes
Do you think
That they have
The potential
To have the kind
Of impact
That the Oxycontin
Express had
I hope so
That's always the goal
As a journalist
Always
You want to have
Some sort of impact
You know
Again
I'm not law enforcement
I'm not there
To stop them
From doing what they do
But I'm certainly
There to create awareness
Does that make
Your job harder though
To know that
If people find out
That you can
In fact
Put the brakes
On whatever
Business
Illegal business
They're running
But I can't
I mean I can
By raising awareness
§67Transcript · 1:53:54–1:55:17
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
Oh does it stop
Does it make my
Job harder
In terms of gaining
Access to these
Worlds
Yeah
I don't think
That people
Want this
I mean in some
Situations yes
People are making
A lot of money
But I don't think
That the actual
The majority
Of the operators
Like the backpacker
Kids
You know
Like the mule
You know
Like the scammer
In Jamaica
That we interviewed
They
I truly believe
That that's
If they could
They would
Lead another life
Did you go to
Nigeria for scammers
No
Do you know
Jamaica has become
The new front lines
Of the new Nigeria
So the calls
That you get
On your phone
Are actually
Coming from Jamaica
Really
It was
It was one
Of my favorite episodes
Yeah
Did Nigeria
Just make enough money
To like we're out
Yeah I think
We're on to Nigerians
And Jamaicans
Are just
They're so
Have you been to Jamaica
No I have not
It's
I'm Jamaicans
I'm obsessed with them
They're
They have
Such great accents
They can make
They can impersonate
An American
In a second
Really
Yeah they're really
Really good
And so we spend
Time with like
All these
Scammers
And like surrounded
With their bodyguards
With guns
And one of them
Told us
As we started
Interviewing this guy
Called Victor
I'm putting on his mic
And he tells me
I'll only let you do this
Mariana
Because you're a woman
If you were a man
You wouldn't touch me
You know
And then I go on
I said okay Victor
What do you do
Let's start this
What do you do
§68Transcript · 1:55:17–1:56:46
And he says
You know what I do
Mariana
I'm in the money game
You call it scamming
I call it the money game
And then he said
You know
And then we start
Talking more
And then he says
Look
I was even thinking
Of robbing you
And your crew
I was going to take away
All your gear
I'm going to rough you up
A little bit
But you're a nice person
So I'll let you be
Whoa
And yeah
So we ended up
Interviewing five
Or a handful of people
There
And sort of listening
To their stories
And why they do
What they do
And there was Tweety
The female scammer
She's an incredible woman
Who tells us a story
That she works
At a resort
In Montego Bay
Where full of Americans
And every day
She goes to work
Knowing that the Americans
Make
Spend more money
In a day
At the resort
Than she makes
In a week
Or a month
Working there
And she comes
Back home one day
And her grandfather
Is very sick
And needs
An easy treatment
But can't get it
Because she doesn't have
She can't afford it
Because health care
Is very expensive
In Jamaica
And she realized
The only way she can get
She can save her grandfather
Is by turning to scamming
And she starts calling Americans
There are these lead lists
That actually sell
For a lot of money
A lot of them
Are coming from call centers
Because Jamaica
Has become sort of
A center for call centers
Because it's cheaper labor
They speak English fluently
So they do call centers
For legitimate businesses
For legitimate businesses
And then they
On that side
They sell
They scam on the side
They get their hands
On these lead lists
Which is names
Of numeric
I got my hands
On some of these lead lists
And it's like
So they get the
Say like
Dell computer
I don't know
Yes
Whatever it is
Whatever company
Has an issue
With customer complaints
§69Transcript · 1:56:46–1:58:49
Or customer service
They call them
They answer the phone
So they even get lists
That come from
Vegas casinos
Of clients
People that go
To Vegas casinos
And so
Somehow these cameras
Also have their hands
On these lists
With names
From hotels
So I had
It was a stack
I don't know
50 pages or something
Of name after name
With phone numbers
So they call
And they say
Hi Mr. Smith
And they do the whole thing
And it's fascinating
We saw them doing it
And they say something like
Okay
So hi Joe
How are you doing today?
Hi Mr. Rogan
How are you doing today?
Can you say?
Fine thank you
Did you go to
Whole Foods today?
Or last week?
Yeah I did
I knew you did
Because sir
You just won the lottery
Wow
I did?
You did
It's a big prize
It's a Mercedes Benz
And it's waiting for you sir
Wow
What do I have to do?
Well you just have to pay
The transportation fee
And it's about $500
That's it?
That's it sir
500 bucks for a free Mercedes
How do I pay this?
Yeah exactly
Should I use my credit card?
Yeah so you can use your credit card
You can buy a little credit card
You know one of those prepaid ones
And then you do it
And then they actually send you
In some cases
The key to the Mercedes Benz
Oh that's hilarious
That's insane right?
So you are at home
And you get the key
And they call you
Sir have you received your key
To your brand new Mercedes Benz?
And you say yeah I have
Oh so then you're more than willing
And now you just have to pay tax
And it's only $5,000
And you go and you go and you go
Because you got your key
Yeah
So they get you for $500
And then they get you for $5,000
Once you get the key
Yeah and then it's really sad
Because we also you know
Show the other side
Which is Americans
Even some committing suicide
Because they've lost all their savings
It's very sad
Yeah
There was a show on scammers once
That was really sad
Because there was this man
He was in his 60s
And he was convinced
There was this woman in Europe
That he was having a correspondence with
And it was really a scammer
And he went over there twice
§70Transcript · 1:58:49–2:00:47
He never talked on the phone
Just exchanged emails and photographs
And never talked on the phone
But they made a plan to meet somewhere
Twice
So twice
This guy went over to Europe
And his family
His daughter in particular
Was trying to tell him
And you could see
He felt like such a fool
But he was still holding out hope
Because he really was convinced
But then here he was
In Europe
And nothing was happening
And he's like
Where is she?
Like I told her
We're here
This is
Such a bummer
The romance scam
I think that's called
It's a bummer
Right
But it's also
It's like
Don't say it
Don't say it
It's the law of the jungle
Oh okay
I thought you were going to say
Because I heard this a lot
People are stupid
Who fall for this
But it's not
No no
It's not stupid
It's not that they're stupid
They're vulnerable
You know
And it's weird
When you have vulnerabilities
And you have people
That take advantage
Of those vulnerabilities
You know
That are also vulnerable
Like financially vulnerable
And they have
A lot of incentive
To try to do things
And it turns out
To be profitable
And then it turns out
To be their business
And you go
Well that's awful
That's terrible
But
Is it terrible
To buy an iPhone?
Because when you buy an iPhone
An iPhone
If you follow
You know
I talked about this
The other day
With Matthew Iglesias
If you follow an iPhone
All the way down
To where
The metal comes out
Of the ground
You find slave labor
I know
Like this is a fact
When you go to Foxconn
You see the people
That work for the company
That actually constructs
These phones
There's fucking nets
Around the building
Because so many people
Jump off the top of the roof
They just put nets up
To catch them
This is
Is that okay?
No
That's okay
Well you're taking it
We're all somehow
Or another
A part of this
Weird food chain
And the food chain
§71Transcript · 2:00:47–2:02:37
Takes advantage
Of vulnerable people
If you call me up
And say
You know
All you have to do
Is give me 500 bucks
And you know
I'll give you
Your key to your Mercedes
That you just won
I'd be like
Oh for real?
Yeah hang on
And I'll just put the phone down
And I'll go watch TV
And I'll leave
Fuck you man
Or I'll hang up on you
Because I'm not dumb
I know but okay
But wait
So there was a good friend of mine
In LA
Who recently got one of these phone calls
It wasn't a Mercedes Benz
They said it was LA
Or it was the power company
I don't know if they actually knew
It was LA DWP
But they said it's the power company
And you're late in payments
And he was going through something
And you know
He might have
And he believed it
And they said
You're very late in payments
And if you don't pay
500 dollars right now
In the LA fees
We're going to cut the electricity
At your house
And he was in the middle
Of doing a million things
As kids
You know
His job
Everything
And decided
Okay what do I need to do
Give me
I'll pay for it easily
Oh boy
And then yeah
It was a scam
So yeah
How much did they get him for?
I think it was like
300, 400, 500 dollars
Something like that
It wasn't thousands
But it was definitely
Well he might have been distracted
You know
You zig when you should have zagged
Yeah I know
I love that
This is the food chain
This is the ecosystem
It's weird
I mean
There's
It's not like
We were talking about
The people that live in Peru
That grow the cocoa leaves
This is not fair
Nothing is fair
It's not fair to be them
And if they can make a phone call
And trick some gringo
Into sending some cash
Like I don't know
I don't
There's a sucker born every minute
It's not just that there's a sucker born every minute
Like it's not fair that you get to be born
In Philadelphia
Where this person is born in Peru
It's not fair
I'm not saying that you did something bad
To be born in you know
A nice place
Yeah I know
But it's not fair
I think what many would argue
That actually Peru is nicer
Well in many ways
It's gorgeous right
§72Transcript · 2:02:37–2:04:23
No it's true
It's true
It is funny right
Like financially
You're better off living in New York City
Yeah
As far as like natural beauty
Happiness
And beauty
Yeah we don't know
That was one of the things
That was really strange
Was when
And made me nervous
Was when the people in the town
Found out that you guys were there
When you were with the guy
That was making the coke
And you had to get the fuck out of there
Yeah
Immediately
What was that like?
It helped that I had
Dirt Smith Garrett Smith
The bear rider with me
At that moment
It was crazy
So we
Just the whole day was insane
We finally get access
We get on the road
This chemist jumps into the car
With us
We're going out there
And then we get there
And it's completely night
Middle of the night
There is not even a moon that day
So it was dark dark dark
And you know
We're Nat Geo
So we come geared with
All these flashlights
And headlamps
And we're ready for everything
That can happen
But we get there
And the guy tells us
Okay
No lights allowed
Because if the population
If the people around the villages
See you
They're going to be pissed
And they're going to come after you
Because the people need
The money from the coke business
Yes
And they would have had to
You know
Given the
EOK
Although this guy said
It was his cocaine lab
And he wanted to give us access
And so we just had to be discreet
But there was no way
That you could get
The green light
From the entire village
They would never agree to it
No
And also he doesn't want
He doesn't want the entire village
To know that he's running
His cocaine lab there
Right
So although they know
That the whole economy
Is sustained on coca leaves
And illegal cocaine
That you know
They don't want
They don't know exactly where
I wouldn't say that
The whole population
Knows exactly where
The drug labs are
That's hidden and secretive
So he was giving us access
He didn't want the population
The people around it
To know
And he also thought
That if they were going to know
They were going to want to come
After us
Not just us
But him as well
And try to harm us
§73Transcript · 2:04:23–2:05:59
Or
Was that the most danger
That you had been in
While filming this series
No
There were other moments
When we were filming
With the sicarios
The gunmen in Sinaloa
For example
And they told us
That while we're with them
We're protected
But if the marines show up
That there's nothing they can do
The marines will start firing at us
And we are going to be stuck
In the middle
And two hours into filming
With the sicarios
Their walkie-talkies
Start buzzing
And we know
Some things off
And they turn to us
And you could see
They're panicked
And there's a marine helicopter
Coming our way
And there's this really
Uncomfortable situation
Where we're like stuck
They start going out
With their cars
We go where our car is
Out in the open
And we see the helicopter
And do we follow them
And then they're going to think
That we're with them
And if they start shooting
At the car
They're going to start
Shooting at us too
Or do we pretend that
Or we stay here and hide
And look even more suspicious
So it was a really nasty moment
For all those
No
By marines
The Mexican marines
Yeah
The Mexican marines
Which are feared
In Mexico
Very feared
And you know
See
From a perspective
Of someone here
You think that
Everyone's on the take
Down there
The Mexican marines
Are the ones that went
After El Chapo
And caught El Chapo
They're considered
The cleanest
The cleanest
Of the
The cleanest
The cleanest
Of the authorities
Down there
You know
But it's one of those
Things
Like in America
We think that
No one
Is above
The influence
Of the cartels
And that's the
In Mexico
The narrative
Yeah
Yeah
And did you hear
The story recently
Was it the minister
The defense secretary
I believe
In Mexico
Who was caught
At LAX
And charged
With being
§74Transcript · 2:05:59–2:07:35
Involvement
In the drug trade
Yeah
And then sent back
To Mexico
And then
Deals
I'm not sure
What happened
Oh they sent him back
Yeah
Oh yeah
So they caught him
He's gonna be charged here
Yeah
And then they're like
Oh sorry
Go ahead
Take him
Yeah
Some sort of
Conversation happened
Behind closed doors
Between the Trump administration
And the Mexican
And they let him go
Oh fucking Trump
Yeah
Wow
What a crazy scene
Yeah
When filming
A show like this
And then
And then releasing it
Does it give you
A sense of
Satisfaction
Of completion
Do you feel
Connected to these
Each individual stories
Like what is it like
To make such an
It seems so intense
Absolutely
They're all
You know
We put so much
You have no idea
How much work goes
Into every single one
Of these pieces
You know
It's months and months
Of preparation
And then it's months
Of editing
And it's
You know
It's been two years
In the making
Two years to this day
More or less
When we started working
On this series
And it finally was released
And yeah
I mean every single
Second that you see
In the film
Is thought out
And heavily studied
And researched
To make sure
That we're getting
Everything right
And that we're making
Good television
At the same time
And that it's compelling
Well you nailed it
You really did
I mean it's so compelling
It's so good
I mean you're out there
Doing fantastic work
I really really appreciate it
And I just want to say
Thank you
Thank you for your work
Thank you for being here
Thanks for coming on again
It was cool to see you
After all these years
I loved it
But all right
Good luck with the show
And tell people again
What the name is
§75Transcript · 2:07:35–2:08:04
When they can see it
For sure
So it's Trafficked
9 p.m. Wednesdays
On National Geographic
And then you can catch me
On the Trafficked podcast
As well
Will be competition
For Drew Rogan's
Yes
And there it is
Trafficked
And social media
I know you're on Twitter
Because that's how
I got a hold of you
That's right
MariannaVZ
On Twitter
And on Instagram
Which Instagram
Is my preferred method
Of social media-ing
Me too
All right
Thank you Marianna
I really really appreciate it
Bye everybody